by William Walsh | Jan 23, 2024 | 2024
As previously published on 1/19/24 in MarTech
Maybe one step in the right direction would be ensuring that AI content generators properly cite their sources.
“Students in Europe are just now writing research papers versus students in the U.K. and U.S. who start writing them in high school.”
This comment was made by a British professor to my son who is a graduate student in Italy. The professor went on to say that, as a result, he and other professors, are more lenient when it comes to plagiarism.
The point of view the professor expressed seemed similar to the current state of AI content generators. We are at the beginning of what will be a long road of generative AI tools producing content. There are lessons to be learned on how to use them correctly.
Last month, I wrote an article for MarTech that ended up appearing on a digital agency’s website, presented at first glance as their own content (it has since been removed). The article was based on research our firm conducted on the best in class social media practices of over 40 companies. For some reason, the website claimed that the article had been written by an AI bot, but also referenced MarTech as the site where it was first published.
Plagiarism and AI detection
As new AI tools are being rolled out, and “rolled in” to existing tools, the discussion is focused on how to regulate the content they generate. There are now numerous AI content detector tools that can be used to determine if content was created by AI, and if it was plagiarized. Consider this a public service announcement for marketers, college students and apparently, college presidents.
OpenAI and Microsoft are now being sued by the New York Times for training its AI machines using Times content. The issue is that Open AI and Microsoft used copyrighted content owned by the Times, without paying for the rights to use it. Many believe that the output of this lawsuit could decide the fate of AI.
The key point in this argument is that of input versus output. The argument for Open AI and Microsoft is the copyrighted material is being used for learning purposes (for their tools). This is something that proponents argue has been done for hundreds of years with humans. Attorneys are a great example. Trained on case history in law school, their written arguments are based on precedent.
Where things change is in the output. If the output of the tools produces content that has been lifted from New York Times articles verbatim, or without citing the source, then you have issues with copyright infringement and/or plagiarism.
Just cite your sources
Our firm invested in, and conducted the research, but the digital agency received the benefit of the insights without properly crediting the source, ostensibly using an AI bot to lift passages from my original article. Any new technology ushers in a time of uncertainty and unknown change. AI tools are disruptive and the ethical issues around their use, see the writers strike as more evidence, are complex.
But maybe, in some ways, it’s not that complicated after all. If we consider AI tools to be, in a sense, a “digital” student consuming vast amounts of content to become knowledgeable and useful, then maybe the issue of how to manage AI generated content isn’t that difficult.
If you prompt an AI tool to source the information it is using, it will return and answer within seconds, confirming it can track back to the original information it used to create the output.
As with the OpenAI/Microsoft case, this comes down to the output, and even more specifically, the user. If, like new students, the users are naive, and/or lackadaisical, you will limit the effectiveness of the tools and your team, and potentially, invite someone from the legal department to come for a visit.
On the other hand, if users are trained and treat the output of the tools like any other article or research paper they would write for high school or college, a huge productivity increase is possible. Simply prompting it to include the sources of the content used does the trick.
Perhaps, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Giving credit where credit is due has always been right, no matter what the situation…or technology.
by William Walsh | Jan 3, 2024 | 2024
By Naheed Somji
Carbon Design Social Media Strategist
Estimated read time: 5 Minutes
A lawyer friend of mine listened to the “marketing guy” drone on and on about how it’s each partners’ responsibility to drum up new business for the firm. He mentioned tactics like attending events, networking, and posting on LinkedIn.
My lawyer friend was not convinced. I believe her exact quote was, “Ain’t nobody got time for that.”
And she is right. When your main focus is settling cases, meeting billable targets, and helping clients, marketing is the last thing on your mind. “I went to law school, not business school!” she exclaimed. Fair enough.
Except… that marketing guy was kind of right.
At Carbon Design, we worked with a top global law firm to help answer a question about LinkedIn usage amongst employees. We analyzed the LinkedIn activity of over 600 partners, specifically measuring post engagement and number of followers (connections) against a list of top performers in the organization.
The results were eye-opening.
We wrote a proprietary formula to calculate a Social Media Score to indicate who has the greatest social media value, aka who is providing the most value by posting about the firm. We found a direct correlation between the most active LinkedIn users and the top billers.
Does posting on LinkedIn all day make you a better lawyer? Of course not. But those who were active on LinkedIn were establishing themselves as thought leaders, and gaining recognition for it. Thus creating the feedback loop. A partner would share their/the firm’s successes on LinkedIn, get cheered on by friends and colleagues, and get noticed by other companies. Over time, a network is built and leads are turned into clients and cases are won so the partner has more successes to share on LinkedIn.
There are two variables needed to make the feedback loop work: content and conversation. The firm provided the content — expertly written articles, blogs, videos — and the partner focused on engaging with their network. If one of these pieces aren’t in place, the marketing effort fails.
If you’re a lawyer reading this, work with your marketing and business development teams to create a content plan for you. This plan should be a checklist of what is required to write an article or record a video. You have two responsibilities: fill out the form that provides the context to the marketing team, and commit to the process and to sharing and engaging with the content when it’s published.
If you’re a marketer or communicator reading this, your job is to create a template where the subject matter expert can give you the information you need in 10 questions or less. You can take their input, the images, and video files, and craft a story that’s relevant for your audience. Keep your SME in the loop on the timeline — remember, endless reviews are where content goes to die, so be clear about the needs and commitment.
If you need help with any of the above, find us on LinkedIn (with the rest of the top performers).
by William Walsh | Dec 13, 2023 | 2023
As previously published on 12/11/23 in MarTech
Catch-22, written by American author Joseph Heller, was published in 1961 and is often cited as one of the most significant novels of the 20th century.
Much of Heller’s prose in Catch-22 is circular and repetitive, highlighting in its form the structure of a “Catch 22.” Circular reasoning is widely used by some characters to justify their actions and opinions. In simple terms circular reasoning is often described as “if A is true because B is true, B is true because A is true.”
Modern day sales executives and marketers are caught in their own “Catch 22.” A version of circular reasoning that says we need more marketing activity because we have more sales resources — we have more sales resources so we need more marketing.
Removed from the circle is the connection to real demand in the marketplace. It is a cycle that prevents both sides from seeing (or admitting) the reality of the situation, which is that we have built inefficiency and costs into the system.
In a period of soft demand, like now (and probably 2024) investments in scaling sales and marketing efforts have led to a Catch 22 for both groups.
How did we get here?
A number of factors have led to the place we now find ourselves in B2B. The constant drumming in the ear of CMO’s to “scale” has caused them to focus on reach, at the expense of performance.
It has resulted in years of investment in scalable martech tools that have left marketing with the ability to create and execute massive outreach campaigns, producing marginal results.
On the other side of the house, the output of those marketing efforts has to be sorted through like panning for gold. As a result, we have sales organizations that have added an enormous amount of headcount (SDR and BDR’s).
In some organizations, the reverse is true. Sales seeking growth have added low cost reps, and those reps need to be fed. As a result, marketing has scaled its efforts to give them something to chase.
Now for the impact of the Catch 22. Marketing isn’t interested in cleansing the “leads” it’s producing at the risk of not hitting goals. Sales is not interested in narrowing its ICP to true buyers because of the legacy thinking of “more is better.” A bigger, broader playing field is always better.
Except it’s not, and now is the time to reset how sales and marketing operate. For many, budgets have been reduced leaving managers to do more with less in 2024. This presents a great opportunity to fix issues which have been created by the need for “scale.”
Here are 7 areas to fix next year that will reduce your costs and improve your effectiveness. It will, however, it requires an honest conversation between sales and marketing.
The Fix
- The MarTech stack – it’s time to evaluate tools by what they produce (results), and not what they track. Also, question – do you really need the scale they provide? This is an opportunity for cost savings.
- Outreach frequency – take a hard look at the performance you are getting in your campaigns and programs. Ask yourself, are you spamming audiences? Be honest. “Always on” doesn’t mean you’re going to catch someone in a buying cycle, in fact, you may cause them to ignore your efforts entirely when they are looking. Here’s the opportunity to improve performance.
- Lead routing and results – this one may be difficult. Evaluate what was routed to sales this past year and examine the results. If you do this correctly, it should be painful. If your lead to conversation rate is below 20-30%, set that as the goal for 2024. This can reduce cost and improve performance.
- Evaluate headcount – if you do #3 correctly, it will reduce the number of MQL’s that reps need to follow up on. And that will lead to an honest look at the number of SDR/BDR needed. It may also reduce marketing headcount and marketing spend.
- Take the hard road – there are two paths to performance and in the past, sales and marketing have taken the path of least resistance – volume. The other path is conversion, which should be the focus for 2024. You can do more with less as long as you improve the quality of what is flowing through the pipeline.
- Refine your ICP – to improve pipeline conversion you need to increase the quality of your prospects. Go deeper into defining your target customer. Add categories that include; motivations, influence, and behaviors. This narrows your targets.
- Have the courage to scrutinize…everything – sales and marketing people, in general, are “glass half full” kind of people. But, having that point of view doesn’t mean the glass isn’t also half empty. Sometimes you have to change your point of view to get better. Now is one of those times.
There is a lot of junk in the system sitting in both sales and marketing platforms. The new year offers an opportunity to clean it up.
Finally, I’m writing this piece for the CMO’s and CRO’s who like the characters in Heller’s novel trapped in a never ending cycle of despair with no relief in sight.
The only way out is for sales and marketing to work together. Marketing can’t improve performance if sales is still requiring it to hit an arbitrary target that keeps BDR/SDR’s busy. Sales has to come to the realization that more isn’t necessarily better. Better is better, and that means become lean and effective.
According to Hubspot, 23% of reps made or exceeded their quota last year. With demand down this year in most sectors, count on that percentage being even lower this year. It’s time to take a realistic look at the actual number of sales reps needed based on performance, not models.
If you cut reps, you can increase the probability of the remaining team making quota. Less reps require less feeding, and as a result, you can reduce marketing activities and budgets, while increasing the quality of the outputs. Doing both, allows you to stop spinning in a circle.
Both groups must come to the realization that “A” is not true because of “B” and “B” is not true because “A.”
You don’t need more marketing, because you don’t need more sales reps. The ones you have aren’t making quota because there aren’t enough opportunities in the market, and you don’t need more marketing because there isn’t that much demand.
There I said it, now it’s out in the open. The circle can be broken.
by William Walsh | Nov 13, 2023 | 2023
As previously published on 11/9/23 in MarTech
Investment is slowing, budgets are shrinking and generative AI threatens disruption. Here’s why 2024 may be a shakeup year for martech.
One certainty for marketers over the last dozen years is that Scott Brinker’s martech landscape map would grow. The map, which started in 2011 with only 150 companies listed, now contains over 11,000 companies* — a ridiculous growth rate of over 7,000%!
With investments bringing generative AI into every marketing area imaginable, it seems certain that next year’s map will continue on the same growth trajectory.
But that may not be the case. The glory days of “build it and they will come” may be over. Even more concerning is the marketing technology landscape may be headed towards a “killing field,” as Larry Ellison once described the software industry during the dot-com bubble.
As a vendor, many of us have seen our clients’ marketing budgets slashed in 2023. What was thought to be a temporary reaction to uncertainty in the economy is now the reality for 2024. And it’s getting worse. Budgets are under attack, with headcount and technology investments being slashed.
1. Investment is drying up
The impact on martech is already starting to surface. In Q3 2023, martech investments went down significantly. The martech pipeline for new product announcements has slowed to 65 in Q3, down from 128 in Q2 and 121 in Q1.
The beginning of the year saw big investments in ChatGPT-related tools, which have also slowed from $10 billion in Q1 to $1.9 billion. For established vendors, servicing debt is getting very expensive. Watch for that to also have an impact on vendor financial viability in 2024.
The cooling of the investment is one factor in the slowing of the product landscapes, but other forces are at play, like the reduction of marketing budgets.
Another force is generative AI itself. It threatens existing products both with its innovation, as well as becoming a replacement.
A whole host of existing videos, content, SEO products, email platforms, list generators and so on could be eliminated if they don’t integrate their own AI solutions immediately.
3. Pressure on marketing to cut budgets
On the client side, marketers are now trying to find efficiencies in their spend. They’re also giving performance a hard look — and it isn’t pretty. In a down market, it’s difficult to defend investments that are not producing. A CMO I recently spoke to told me that in 2022, they closed one out of four opportunities created by marketing. In 2023, that number was one out of 10.
Data integration issues still plague organizations, as well as historical attribution challenges. Existing tools will be difficult to defend without hard evidence of business impact or ROI.
Martech “stacks” have grown so large that even in small organizations, it’s not uncommon to see 30 to 50 products aimed at various stages of the buyer journey. Those tools are now beginning to be under the microscope, and CMOs have to rationalize those investments.
Count on seeing marketing organizations unbundling and/or not renewing contracts with existing vendors at the end of this year or early next year. Vendors, the days of multi-year contracts will also be under pressure as buyers look for more flexibility.
Marketers love shiny new tools, and generative AI has the type of shine that is hard to resist. There is no question about AI’s ability to help marketing organizations be more efficient. Whether it’s content development or video production, the tools are fast and produce a pretty good output if trained appropriately.
The question of whether they are more effective remains to be seen. The pressure of not falling behind competitors may help CMOs justify those investments for now, but it will come with strings attached. The biggest string — a zero-based budget. It will no longer be an “additive” game. New investments will come from the elimination of other tools.
5. Barbarians will be at the gate
Expected to see a significant increase in M&A activity next year, Adobe, Microsoft, and Oracle will be hunting for opportunities to enhance their portfolio or plug gaps in their solution set. Reduced funding, combined with slowing (perhaps dramatically) market demand and more expensive debt, means there will be opportunities to pick up innovative technologies cheaply.
Also, look for competitors in similar categories to merge to reduce cost, expand the customer base and conserve cash. The martech landscape could very much become a killing field of the past.
CMOs who have become “data-driven” must now become performance-driven. In what is a more permanent stage of a slowing economy, competition for funding internally will pit sales, marketing and product organizations against each other. These groups will be increasingly skeptical of what marketing investments are producing.
Marketing organizations and technology providers will be pressured to defend their value, performance and worth. Buckle up — 2024 is going to be a rough ride for everyone!
by William Walsh | Sep 20, 2023 | 2023
By Scott Gillum
Estimated read time: 2 Minutes
Here’s an observation for my friends in tech marketing.
Above is an extract from research we recently conducted. Close to 500 C-Level IT buyers (CTO, CIO, CISO, etc.) were interviewed or surveyed.
The graph represents the top 4 purchase drivers. Each of the 4 categories include the platform and the people. Technical expertise includes not only the solution, but also, the people selling, integrating and supporting it.
The “people” component in the other categories is pretty obvious. The question is, how are you communicating the value of your people in your content and messaging? Are you?
In my observations, most organizations have shifted to almost exclusively focusing on the technology/platform. We’ve become very myopic in marketing our solution. It could be pressure coming from the product group or senior management. It’s pushed marketing too far in one direction.
People use technology to get an output. They don’t buy it because of what it is, they buy it because of what it does…oftentimes, for them specifically. How you sell and support your tool most often dictates whether or not you’ll get the renewal, add-on or even a referral.
People also buy from people. If you’re leaving the human piece out, you are doing the customer, company and your colleagues a disservice.
