How do you skillfully introduce AI into your marketing campaigns so that you see real results?
In part 1 of this series, we met Anne, a midsize company CMO who had decided AI could help her team deliver better results. Now she faces a new challenge: sorting through an overwhelming array of AI marketing tools, each promising to revolutionize her operations. Her team needs solutions that work now, not science experiments. And with limited budget and IT resources, she can’t afford to make a wrong choice.
After her team sat through several demos filled with buzzwords like “AI-powered optimization” and “intelligent automation,” Anne realized they needed a systematic way to evaluate these tools. She developed a simple but effective framework built around three key questions:
1. What specific problem are we trying to solve?
2. How will we measure success?
3. What resources do we actually have to implement and maintain this?
Vendors show amazing results in their case studies. Why wouldn’t they? As a buyer, though, you need to focus on what you can realistically do with a tool given your specific situation.
Start with What You Have
Before you can decide how to embedded AI into your marketing campaigns and which tools to use, you have to know where you are. You’ll want to document the following:
· All marketing activities. Create a campaign inventory template that your team can contribute to.
· Team capabilities. Download a template or create your own for capturing the information. What further learning capacity does your team have?
· Your marketing tech stack. Include integration points, data sources, contract details, and team members using it.
· Current workflows and pain points. Beyond the steps and team member responsibilities, think about manual tasks that slow your team down, data analysis bottlenecks, and personalization opportunities.
Pro tip: Once you’ve created these documents, plan to update them at least annually. They’ll help you maintain a strong understanding of what’s really going on in your area and inform your strategies.
Next, you’ll need to assess how much you can reasonably expect to accomplish. If your company doesn't have an AI strategy yet, meet with IT to discover any technical constraints. Most AI tools will need to work within your existing system. The older your system, the more consideration you’ll need to put into choosing your tools.
Also research:
· Available budget for both direct and indirect costs
· Needed training time and resources
· Data quality and accessibility
With all this information, you’re ready to define your tool needs.
Classify Your Needs
Anne’s initial research revealed four basic categories of marketing AI, as shown in the table.
Category
Benefits
Best For Companies That…
Standalone automation
· Quick to implement
· Minimal IT support needed
· Lower cost entry point
· Easier to test and validate
· Are just starting with AI
· Need quick wins
· Have limited IT resources
· Want to automate specific tasks
Integrated automation
· Works with existing systems
· More sophisticated features
· Central data management
· Better workflow integration
· Have a solid tech stack
· Need to scale AI usage
· Have some IT support
· Want to improve existing processes
Standalone machine learning
· Powerful analytical capabilities
· Highly customizable
· Deep insights possible
· More control over the AI
· Have data science expertise
· Need custom solutions
· Have clean, extensive data
· Can dedicate resources to AI
Integrated machine learning
· Enterprise-grade capabilities
· Managed AI features
· Comprehensive solutions
· Regular updates and improvements
· Have larger budgets
· Need advanced features
· Want managed solutions
· Can handle complex implementations
Vendors don’t always make these distinctions clear. They’re selling features, not explaining what it would actually take to implement and maintain their solutions. Take the time to understand these categories to ensure you have the right resources and you’ve minimized the risks. Choosing the wrong category can result in too much complexity to manage or too little capability to make a real difference.
Next Step: Build a Better Evaluation
At this point, you’ve defined exactly where you are and taken the first step of defining your needs. In the conclusion of this series, you’ll develop an evaluation framework for specific tools and learn how to:
· Create a practical assessment framework
· Identify red flags to watch for
· Focus your evaluation process
Stay tuned!
Erin Brenner is the owner of Right Touch Editing, a boutique editorial agency that specializes in helping small and midsize businesses to be more engaging with their audiences, more persuasive in their marketing, and clearer and more precise in their communications.
Erin is also the author of The Chicago Guide for Freelance Editors: How to Take Care of Your Business, Your Clients, and Yourself from Start-Up to Sustainability, Marketing Yourself Guide (with Sarah Hulse), Copyediting’s Grammar Tune-Up Workbook, and 1001 Words for Success: Synonyms, Antonyms & Homonyms. She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute for Editing and Proofreading and a Full Member of ACES. Follow her on LinkedIn and Bluesky.