Category Archives: Branding and Marketing

The Future of Artificial Intelligence & Digital Marketing

03 Wednesday Apr 2024

Posted by in Branding and Marketing

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Generative AI has been seen by some as a sort of magical tool that is able to create unique images, voices, and videos with minimal effort. But it has been extremely controversial for creative professionals. In these early days of the technology, some less-than-honest creators have been using it as a quick shortcut that used AI-generated imagery. AI-generated images often appear high quality at first glance, but contain inconsistencies in areas including hands, fingers, or background details. Once your eye is trained to spot these flaws, they cannot be unseen.

AI can be very positive or very negative, very constructive, or very destructive. AI is a Language Learning Machine [LLM]. Feed it with falsehoods and immoral or illegal information, you will end up with a vey evil machine. Feed it with wisdom and absolute truth, you will end up with a very helpful, powerful, and constructive assistant.

I created my own AI assistant, a clone of myself fed with wisdom, veracity, and exactness. Here is how to get started in using AI to look at data and engagement, helping harness creative marketing potential.

In the face of macro headwinds, many marketing teams have shifted their focus towards efficiency and return on investment (ROI), inadvertently relegating creativity to the backseat. This efficiency-driven approach, while necessary, often results in marketers spending a significant amount of time on routine tasks, leaving less room for creative experimentation. On top of that, marketers may lack the knowledge or access to innovative tools and technologies that can foster creativity. This dynamic presents a unique challenge for marketing teams striving to balance efficiency with creative innovation.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) presents a promising solution to this productivity paradox. Furthermore, AI can provide a canvas for experimentation, sparking creativity by offering new ways to engage audiences and personalize content. And many marketers seem eager to embrace these opportunities. Marketers clearly recognize the potential, but the reality is many marketers and consumers are still learning about AI, including how to put it into practice. The complexity of AI technologies coupled with a lack of knowledge about how to effectively use them can be a major barrier to reaping its benefits. Overcoming these obstacles is crucial for marketers to fully harness the potential of AI in fostering creativity while maintaining efficiency.

So, what can marketing leaders do to set their teams up in 2024 for success?

A staggering 98% of surveyed marketers identified issues holding them back from being creative and strategic. The obstacles are not singular, but rather a combination of four parallel challenges, and the focus areas are not all too surprising. These include an overemphasis on KPIs that stifles creativity, too much time spent on routine tasks, a lack of technology to execute creative ideas, and difficulty demonstrating the ROI of creativity. Helping marketing teams execute faster and more effectively is a powerful first step to help them move past these challenges and get back to the work they’re passionate about.

AI’s Role in Achieving Data Agility and Higher Productivity

With more time for strategic work, marketers can tackle challenges associated with breaking down silos across teams to leverage data more effectively and drive business outcomes. Despite the vast amounts of data generated daily, only 24% of brands are currently mapping customer behavior and sentiment, and a mere 6% are applying customer insights to their product and brand approach.

This underutilization of data is a missed opportunity, especially considering AI’s capacity to process, analyze, and draw meaningful insights from complex data sets, enabling it to predict customer behavior, preferences, and trends. AI can be the bridge that by enabling businesses to make informed strategic decisions that significantly impact the customer experience.

By leveraging AI and breaking down silos between teams, brands can achieve higher productivity to gain a competitive and creative edge. As businesses move beyond vanity metrics and aim to deepen first-party relationships with customers, it is crucial that they can quickly act on data to create personalized experiences in-the-moment and at scale. And doing this can really pay off.

Marketers Need Cross-Functional Allies

For teams to be strategic, creative, and maximize their data usage for customer engagement they need to work more cross-functionally. Unlocking the full potential of AI necessitates a deeper collaboration with teams responsible for data management, including those handling data warehouses, business intelligence applications, CRMs, and other data-rich platforms. The siloed approach of the past is no longer effective in a world where customer touchpoints require stronger alignment and partnership between teams that manage data to power experiences across various channels. This type of collaboration requires a shift in mindset, breaking down departmental barriers, and encouraging open communication, especially as execution moves faster with AI.

At JMD Live ONLINE BUSINESS CONSULTING, we use AI not only to help our customers craft creative, personalized experiences, but we also experiment with AI in our own marketing to save valuable time and resources in customer engagement, while increasing our strategic cross-functional collaboration and creativity in social and digital engagement.

AI is a transformative force that is reshaping marketing. The challenges marketers face today, from the pressure to deliver ROI, the time-consuming routine tasks, to the underutilization of data, are not insurmountable. However, the journey to fully realize the benefits of AI requires not just the adoption of technology, but also a shift in mindset, a commitment to continuous learning, and a culture of cross-functional collaboration. Only then can we fully unlock the creative potential of AI.

Michel Ouellette JMD, ll.l., ll.m.

JMD Live Online Subscription link

J. Michael Dennis, ll.l., ll.m.

Business & Corporate Strategist

Systemic Strategic Planning

Quality Assurance, Occupational Health & Safety, Environmental Protection, Regulatory Compliance, Crisis & Reputation Management

Skype: jmdlive

Email: jmdlive@jmichaeldennis.live

Web: https://www.jmichaeldennis.live

Phone: 24/7 Emergency Access

Available to our clients/business partners

The Future of Artificial Intelligence & Digital Marketing

03 Wednesday Apr 2024

Posted by in Artificial Intelligence, Branding and Marketing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

Generative AI has been seen by some as a sort of magical tool that is able to create unique images, voices, and videos with minimal effort. But it has been extremely controversial for creative professionals. In these early days of the technology, some less-than-honest creators have been using it as a quick shortcut that used AI-generated imagery. AI-generated images often appear high quality at first glance, but contain inconsistencies in areas including hands, fingers, or background details. Once your eye is trained to spot these flaws, they cannot be unseen.

AI can be very positive or very negative, very constructive, or very destructive. AI is a Language Learning Machine [LLM]. Feed it with falsehoods and immoral or illegal information, you will end up with a vey evil machine. Feed it with wisdom and absolute truth, you will end up with a very helpful, powerful, and constructive assistant.

I created my own AI assistant, a clone of myself fed with wisdom, veracity, and exactness. Here is how to get started in using AI to look at data and engagement, helping harness creative marketing potential.

In the face of macro headwinds, many marketing teams have shifted their focus towards efficiency and return on investment (ROI), inadvertently relegating creativity to the backseat. This efficiency-driven approach, while necessary, often results in marketers spending a significant amount of time on routine tasks, leaving less room for creative experimentation. On top of that, marketers may lack the knowledge or access to innovative tools and technologies that can foster creativity. This dynamic presents a unique challenge for marketing teams striving to balance efficiency with creative innovation.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) presents a promising solution to this productivity paradox. Furthermore, AI can provide a canvas for experimentation, sparking creativity by offering new ways to engage audiences and personalize content. And many marketers seem eager to embrace these opportunities. Marketers clearly recognize the potential, but the reality is many marketers and consumers are still learning about AI, including how to put it into practice. The complexity of AI technologies coupled with a lack of knowledge about how to effectively use them can be a major barrier to reaping its benefits. Overcoming these obstacles is crucial for marketers to fully harness the potential of AI in fostering creativity while maintaining efficiency.

So, what can marketing leaders do to set their teams up in 2024 for success?

A staggering 98% of surveyed marketers identified issues holding them back from being creative and strategic. The obstacles are not singular, but rather a combination of four parallel challenges, and the focus areas are not all too surprising. These include an overemphasis on KPIs that stifles creativity, too much time spent on routine tasks, a lack of technology to execute creative ideas, and difficulty demonstrating the ROI of creativity. Helping marketing teams execute faster and more effectively is a powerful first step to help them move past these challenges and get back to the work they’re passionate about.

AI’s Role in Achieving Data Agility and Higher Productivity

With more time for strategic work, marketers can tackle challenges associated with breaking down silos across teams to leverage data more effectively and drive business outcomes. Despite the vast amounts of data generated daily, only 24% of brands are currently mapping customer behavior and sentiment, and a mere 6% are applying customer insights to their product and brand approach.

This underutilization of data is a missed opportunity, especially considering AI’s capacity to process, analyze, and draw meaningful insights from complex data sets, enabling it to predict customer behavior, preferences, and trends. AI can be the bridge that by enabling businesses to make informed strategic decisions that significantly impact the customer experience.

By leveraging AI and breaking down silos between teams, brands can achieve higher productivity to gain a competitive and creative edge. As businesses move beyond vanity metrics and aim to deepen first-party relationships with customers, it is crucial that they can quickly act on data to create personalized experiences in-the-moment and at scale. And doing this can really pay off.

Marketers Need Cross-Functional Allies

For teams to be strategic, creative, and maximize their data usage for customer engagement they need to work more cross-functionally. Unlocking the full potential of AI necessitates a deeper collaboration with teams responsible for data management, including those handling data warehouses, business intelligence applications, CRMs, and other data-rich platforms. The siloed approach of the past is no longer effective in a world where customer touchpoints require stronger alignment and partnership between teams that manage data to power experiences across various channels. This type of collaboration requires a shift in mindset, breaking down departmental barriers, and encouraging open communication, especially as execution moves faster with AI.

At JMD Live ONLINE BUSINESS CONSULTING, we use AI not only to help our customers craft creative, personalized experiences, but we also experiment with AI in our own marketing to save valuable time and resources in customer engagement, while increasing our strategic cross-functional collaboration and creativity in social and digital engagement.

AI is a transformative force that is reshaping marketing. The challenges marketers face today, from the pressure to deliver ROI, the time-consuming routine tasks, to the underutilization of data, are not insurmountable. However, the journey to fully realize the benefits of AI requires not just the adoption of technology, but also a shift in mindset, a commitment to continuous learning, and a culture of cross-functional collaboration. Only then can we fully unlock the creative potential of AI.

Michel Ouellette JMD, ll.l., ll.m.

JMD Live Online Subscription link

J. Michael Dennis, ll.l., ll.m.

Business & Corporate Strategist

Systemic Strategic Planning

Quality Assurance, Occupational Health & Safety, Environmental Protection, Regulatory Compliance, Crisis & Reputation Management

Skype: jmdlive

Email: jmdlive@jmichaeldennis.live

Web: https://www.jmichaeldennis.live

Phone: 24/7 Emergency Access Available to our clients/business partners

Building Brand Loyalty

05 Thursday Oct 2023

Posted by in Branding and Marketing

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Building loyalty does not happen overnight, though, nor can it be done in too obvious a way. Brands should understand the long game and truly appreciate that retaining a customer takes effort and investment. This cost will always be lower than the cost of acquiring a new customer.

Every company, big or small, should understand a simple fact that applies to all businesses: If a customer or client is willing to spend money on your product or service once, they’ll likely be willing to do it again. Your job is simply to keep them loyal.

A Solid Foundation

First and foremost, you need to deliver on the first purchase or experience, as this creates the foundation of the relationship. But once you’ve crossed that threshold, you can deepen loyalty, which can directly translate into repeat purchasing.

With the pandemic limiting in-person interactions, building loyalty was challenging, and supply-chain issues ensured that in many industries, demand was far exceeding supply. For these reasons and others, many brands abandoned their relationship-building efforts. Today, those brands that are reigniting their programs are gaining a massive advantage over their competitors.

Creating A Connection

While it might seem that customer connection initiatives would be impossible for small businesses to implement, there is always a way to create a connection, whether you’re a Fortune 500 company or a neighborhood family business.

Today, most consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions and get frustrated when this does not happen. I personally experienced this recently at a restaurant I visited with my business partner in Kingston. I had an excellent dining experience, but what was most impressive was what happened the next day.

The morning after my visit, I received an email from the general manager thanking me for joining them, offering me to contact him directly for my next reservation.

It may not have been the general manager himself sending this personal note, but regardless of who was behind it, the effect was the same, and it would pay off for the restaurant, as within days, I had already booked myself and some of my staff members for a business lunch.

The Value Of In-Person Interaction

Today, it is a known fact that personalization can deliver five to eight times the ROI on marketing spend and can lift sales by 10% or more.

Today, to succeed in this highly competitive consumer environment, companies and businesses should make relationship-building a key strategic pillar of their sales and marketing efforts, especially as consumers are looking to learn more about and interact more personally with brands.

Those that do will be setting the foundation for long-term loyalty. They will also have a step up on their competitors when it comes to customer retention, not to mention a direct line to their customers’ wallets.

Check out my website.

J. Michael Dennis, ll.l., ll.m.

FREE SPEECH ABSOLUTIST / PERSONAL & CORPORATE FIXER

Systemic Strategic Planning; Regulatory Compliance; Crisis & Reputation Management.

Targeting Customers on Social Media

16 Tuesday May 2023

Posted by in Branding and Marketing

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Is your Business ready for what comes next?


 “It doesn’t get much better than a moment of delight on social media.”


For most businesses, social media engagement seems like a slam dunk strategy. Everyone should be doing it, right? But it certainly comes with its blind spots and questions.


One of the quickest and easiest ways to set yourself apart on social media is simply to reply to all your customers, all the time. A helpful and happy response will invariably propel you ahead of the curve. All it takes is engaging with the people who want to engage with you.


Eighty-eight percent of brands do not respond to messages that need a reply. Simply by engaging with your customers and clients, by engaging with the people who want to engage with you, be among the elite twelve percent.


JMD Live ONLINE BUSINESS CONSULTING can help you do just that. Here are some tips that you can implement today.


1. Social media engagement is public


Social media engagement allows you to naturally amplify your brand’s voice and tone. Social media engagement allows you to propel your interactions front-and-center before a larger audience.


Traditional private one on one private interactions like email are fine, but with social channels like Twitter, these interactions can be public, at least to start. The same goes for engaging with your audience in Instagram comments or Facebook reviews.


You are already wowing your private audience in other channels like email and live chat! With social media, the awesomeness you are delivering becomes visible to everyone. Those amazing audience interactions that create strong word of mouth marketing for you are now amplified to a much larger audience.


Existing and potential customers get to see first-hand that you are responsive and actively supporting your products and services.

2. Social media engagement is fast and focused


You can deliver delight very fast and in a focused way, chatting with your audience about specific topics and campaigns or helping solve problems that they are facing.


Focusing on the short and sweet, something magical happens: the barrier to entry for your audience drops dramatically. They now have an easy way to converse with you, anytime. Focusing and specific topics mean you can reply faster and engage deeper with your audience.


Faster responses equal happier customers, which equals more ROI. Happier customers and clients are the one big factor that affects any bottom line: faster responses generate revenue for all brands.


Because of its fast and friendly nature, social media is often preferred over other channels of getting in touch. The more and faster you respond to your audience, the better and faster prospective customers and clients learn that social media are great places to connect directly with both, you and your brand.


3. Social media is where your customers are.


Today, social media is where your customers are. You can achieve a huge scale of engagement by being responsive on social media.


A vast majority of your audience of your prospective customers and clients are on social media throughout the day. It is where they are at and where it often makes the most sense for them to reach out and get in touch. Today, people spend most of their waking hours staring at screens.


Let it be known that people spend an average of nearly four hours a day consuming media on a screen. A growing percentage of that viewing happens on smartphones and apps.


What are you waiting for?


Michel Ouellette JMD, ll.l., ll.m.
Systemic Strategic Planning / Regulatory Compliance / Crisis & Reputation Management


Skype: jmdlive

Phone: 1. 613.539.1793

Email: jmdlive@live.ca

Web: https://www.jmichaeldennis.live/


Michel Ouellette / J. Michael Dennis is a Former Attorney, a Trial Scientist, a Crisis & Reputation Management Expert, a Public Affairs & Corporate Communications Specialist, a Warrior for Common Sense and Free Speech.


Follow JMDlive on:

JMD Live Online Business Consulting, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Mastodon, Tumblr, Instagram, jmichaeldennis.ca