The roundtable on marketing was conducted March 18 at the Courtyard by Marriott in Canfield. Seven panelists talked about what marketing is, the challenges and benefits of artificial intelligence and the future of the industry. Participants were Jim Houck, owner, Houck Agency; Rob Palowitz, owner, Palo Creative; Jeff Ryznar, owner, 898 Marketing; Adrienne Sabo, creative director, Clever; Kelli Hulea, project director, Pecchia Communications; Steve Cross, owner, iSynergy; and George Farris, owner, Farris Marketing. Business Journal associate editor George Nelson led the questions.
Business Journal: Marketing is a broad term. What are some of the elements it involves?
George Farris, Farris Marketing: Well, the college course version is the four pieces: product, place, price and promotion. But it’ s so expanded today. I’ve always thought of marketing as anything that helps you sell your product or service. I don’t care what it is if you’re staying with a sandwich board, or you’re handing out coupons, or you’re doing social media, or you’re having an event or you’re bringing a client to lunch. It’s anything that helps you sell your product or services. But technically, beyond those four P’s, you have to add customer experience. You have to add any type of customer intelligence, whether that’s intelligence you gain through research online, or whether that’s customer engagement.
Steve Cross, iSynergy: Marketing involves any interaction that your audience has with a brand, whether that’s digital, physical, video. It doesn’t matter what platform it is on. If you have a logo on your shirt and you’re waiting in line at a local food joint, that’s marketing. Your employees, if they’re talking about work when they’re out to dinner with their significant other, somebody overhears them, that’s marketing. At any given point and time, if you’re talking about a brand, it’s marketing.
Kelli Hulea, Pecchia Communications: I would add that at the core of marketing is strong communication. So you’re communicating your brand, whether it’s verbally or nonverbally, such as wearing the logo on your shirt, you’re communicating that. And so we are strong believers in the written word as well as the form of communication. So everything involves some aspect of the written word and content development, as well as just your overall brand management. It boils down to communication as the key.
Adrienne Sabo, Clever: I think it’s basic. I would agree with what everyone said so far, just how everyone experiences your brand. And I think sometimes people think of their different departments as siloed, but at the end of the day, they all tend to go back to marketing, because if you’re not talking with one unified voice and one unified brand, that’s really what you should be doing to stay on message. So when someone calls in for customer support, making sure that those people are still communicating the brand in that way is important, as well as your sales team and your executive team all the way down to someone who may greet you if it’s a physical location. Every way that somebody has a touch point with your company, has to do with marketing.
Jeff Ryznar, 898 Marketing: You have seven people here that are a little biased, but I think all of us would agree that it’s the most important piece to any organization. It’s who you are. It’s your last name that your family carries. It’s the title that someone holds in a business. It defines who you are and that’s why it is so vital that everybody understands how important it is and the role that they play. It’s not just the seven of us at the table or our team members or the CMO. It’s every single individual and everybody’s marketing every day. It’s not just businesses. Students are marketing themselves to their teachers. Spouses are marketing themselves to each other. Friends are marketing themselves… It is a constant form of engagement that really comes back to.. the Greek word is ethos. What people think about you before they even know you, before they even get to meet you. Your reputation kind of precedes you…It’s that important.
Rob Palowitz, Palo Creative: The way I think about it, it’s the first interaction someone has with your brand, whether they’re a customer, vendor, employee, your recruiter, someone you’re trying to recruit to the last conversion. And that’s how we look from a growth standpoint with our clients and the relationships we look to build with, internally, externally, with everyone. We want to have not only the first impression be impactful, but all the way through the buyer’s journey to the final conversion, where they’re interacting with you and your brand, that it’s a great experience. Now we’re only human. It’s not always going to be perfect, but I think that if you can look at that and start with the brand awareness that you have from that first impression, the buyer’s journey, the UI, the UX, the web presence, from start to finish, then you have a more captive audience that you can keep and have the longevity of that potential client and employee and vendor and all the way down the line. So I think just giving that good presence from start to finish, is marketing.
Jim Houck, Houck Agency: I would just emphasize one more thing. I also agree that marketing is sort of the broad overarching term that all these different strategies fall under. And oftentimes it comes down to three different types of strategies: owned media, earned media and paid media. And we all live in various forms of that universe here at this table that I’m sure we’re going to get into later on in the discussion.
Business Journal: How do you determine what types of marketing will be most effective for what client? When does social media work better than traditional media and vice versa? When is content marketing a better fit than SEO, email or affiliate?
Sabo, Clever: I think a lot of it starts with the conversations that we first have with the client. It’s either their marketing team or their leadership, whomever’s involved. If they’re new to us we usually do sort of an audit of what have you done, what’s working, what’s not working and then also looking at the landscape of things. I think there’s some things that are just kind of like low hanging fruit that you need to be doing. So do you have some sort of digital web presence? Do you have social media? Are all of your listings up to date? Do you have some basic things in place that people are going to be able to find you? Those are sort of like the barriers of entry of doing business these days that people are sort of expecting. And then beyond that, it comes down to really who your target audience is and what sorts of media are they most consuming. So if you have a younger audience, then we’re definitely going to be more digital focused. If you have an older target audience, then more traditional media. Personally, we do a lot of digital at our agency, just because it is very trackable, and you can use the analytics, and we can prove the things that are working and the things that aren’t working, and sort of tailor things from there. We don’ t really believe that any media is really dead to us. I think that there’s a time and place for everything so I still very much think outdoor, TV, print, even those are all still very valuable ways of reaching people. It’s just a matter of who you’re trying to reach, what we feel like they’ve done in the past, what hasn’t worked and what their competitors are doing. Because sometimes, if everyone’s zigging, maybe you zag to kind of make a difference and cut through that noise.
Farris, Farris Marketing: I think the audit is critical. You have to investigate before you communicate. It’s always been a cornerstone of, I’m sure, everybody’s process here. But sometimes you overlook things like, where you’re going to engage the customer. I think that’s how we start. We tend to think, Oh, see this billboard, or see the social media. The other thing about where that person is going to make the decision, physically and mentally, where they’re making a buying decision, and that needs to be part of your audit. Also, the sell cycle. There’s a lot of times B to B sell cycles are a lot different than B to C sell cycles. And obviously, if there’s history of using certain types of media, you want to take that into account. And lastly, take a look at client resources because you could have the greatest strategy in the world but if the client can’t afford it…
Cross, iSynergy: I think it starts and ends at the same place. And that’s the goal, good marketing, bad marketing, what channels you should be on. It’s all objective based. Whenever you’re looking at what type of marketing should I be doing, or what should I be doing for the brand, it starts with what are you trying to achieve. Because if you don’t know what the goal and what the target is, you don’t know what you should be doing. But on that point, we’re not starting a conversation with the audience. We’re entering into the conversation that they’re already having. So you have to make sure you’re meeting them with where they live and where they consume their media, whatever type of channel that is. So it starts with the goal and then you prepare a plan to achieve that goal and then you iterate and optimize during the process.
Hulea, Pecchia Communications: I would also add through the audit and those initial conversations with the client a big thing that I think we sometimes forget is listening. They are the experts. We are coming to assist them. We are the experts in marketing, but they’re the experts in their business. So I think it’s really important for us to go in with that mindset, to know that we have something to learn from the client. And it’s not necessarily, here’s how we handle it, X, Y and Z, here’s what we will do. It’s more, so tell us your pain point. Tell us what you’re currently trying. What are your assets? What budget do you have to work with? We’re not going to suggest paid media if the budget is small. So how can we be most effective based on what you currently have.
Ryznar, 898 Marketing: And I think we’ve had partners come to us and say, I need a social media strategy. I need to be out on social media. And sometimes our partners don’t really know what they need. They just feel like that’s the next thing that they have to understand. Social is much more conducive to a conversation piece and much more conducive to the testimonial style of exposure and becoming more of an educative, authoritative person in it. Whenever you look at social, we break it down to three things: it’s educational, it’s experiential, and then there’s the selling part of it. It’s really an 80/20 rule. Those first two are 40% of the conversation. You have to establish yourself as experiential. What are you doing to garner attention and time? Because that’s the currency you’re talking about when you’re on social media, it’s not money. And then the educational component is establishing yourself as a thought leader. And the smallest part of that is pushing the offers and the reason that you want them to engage with you and many times that balance is skewed differently. Before they come to one of us for our assistance, it’s usually, I’ m pushing the offer out. And we call it the Hawaii effect. If you meet somebody at a restaurant, or you go out on a first date, and you get that number, and there’s an attraction there, you don’t ask them to go on a trip to Hawaii as a second date. You have more dates to nurture that relationship before you make a long-term commitment. Social media allows you the opportunity to establish those connection points while also having others validate who you are and what you are. But that space has even totally changed. It’s very important understanding the question of when it’s a better fit than SEO, email and affiliate. It goes back to the goals 100% but it also goes back to how interesting are you. Are you the most interesting person in the world – that Dos Equis guy – or are you just throwing stuff out and it’s not really garnering that much interest. So having those buckets of educational, experiential and understanding that the sales side of it should not be the most important is a good strategy to help establish your presence out there.
Palowitz, Palo Creative: You’ve got to evaluate where they are, internally, externally, the sales process. What’s the current outreach? And the resources, what are they looking to dedicate to that? Because their goals may be very aspiring. They may be large. We’ve all seen that. Sometimes expectations are very high, and we all deal with that when we have those meetings, especially for the first time. They all have aspirations to be the next level – bigger. Usually, if you’re in business, you’re an entrepreneur, you want to keep growing. Or you’re growing stale so to be relevant you need to keep moving. Especially in this day and age with AI, it’s very important to always be peeking around the corner. But at the end of the day, you need to get someone somewhere. You need to get them to a funnel. If they’re ready to buy, get them in the funnel, and then you’re either going to nurture them to get them to buy at some point. Now, how are they going to buy? What are they going to see when they come to their website? What do they do when they come to your website? What do they do when they see your social media? What do they do when they see your traditional marketing? So you need to tell people what they need to do. So that’s part of that, the marketing aspects, and it is different from B to B to B to C. B to B, it’s a little slower, it’s more nurturing. There’s more engagement. And there’s some of the low-lying fruit opportunities. We want to look at that first, because you can have some quick wins to help them believe in the market. Because everyone thinks they want to do marketing, sometimes they don’t realize they need to do marketing, or they may not need to do marketing. They can do some things internally to fix things and look at their sales process and see how that goes.
Houck, Houck Agency: I think one of the most important things out of the gate is to really establish who their audience is. Oftentimes that’s more than one persona. And oftentimes you have to ask them, which part of the sales process do you need help reaching them, and what’s the message at each step of that discussion. So the beauty of a lot of the digital media strategies we have today is you can market to very specific demographics and different personas using digital channels. And it’s a different message if they’re at the top of the funnel, if it’s more of an awareness discussion. If it’s more of a credibility discussion, then it’s a different form of marketing and a different part of the funnel. So really understanding their audience to a really strong degree is extremely important.
Business Journal: How much do you rely on or utilize artificial intelligence in your operations and to accomplish what? How much has it changed – either for better or for worse – how you do your jobs?
Farris, Farris Marketing: I love it. I think it’s a terrific resource for a number of reasons. One of the things I like to use it for is accounting. I don’t know how many of my fellow marketers in here employ bookkeepers or accountants or CPAs. I found that a lot of work that my CPA does is data entry. And then I found out working with AI, there’s a whole bunch that you could skip over now and let automate. So I’m really in favor of automating as much as possible. But using it for marketing, look at “Mad Men,” or something like that, where you’ve always got some guy, ‘Hey, Schwartz, come in here, give me some ideas.’ And he – Schwartz – runs down the hallway, and him and some other bonehead come back, and they’ve got five different goofy ideas. You never use them, but they’re a starter. And that’s kind of how I look at AI from an idea generating standpoint. They’ re answer engines. So they gather up a bunch of stuff that other people have already done. It’s not like they’re inventing anything.
Sabo, Clever: One thing I would caution against when it comes to AI, which I do think is a great tool. But I’ve seen a lot more people embrace it for design skills. And while Adobe has a lot of things built in, with some generative fills and things like that, it doesn’t always answer the prompts correctly. And also I think it’s leading down this path where everybody looks the same. Meta is adopting this philosophy. Google’s adopting this philosophy, and then it just becomes a money game. Who can spend the most. And I think then we start to lose some of the creative marketing aspect of it because you all look the same, you all sound the same, your logos are starting to look [the same]. When you go down this path, it’s just a money thing, and if you don’t have the budget to outspend somebody… We work in a telemed space, and one of the things we’re seeing a lot is you could just swap anything out with any message. And it’s so noisy that you have to do something different. And so that’s where I think having a marketing partner really comes in, because they can sort of caution you against going down that path… So how do we break through that in a different way is really what it comes down to.
Palowitz, Palo Creative: Yeah, you fight so hard to get your prospects’ attention, and now, if you’re putting out content that sounds like a duck, looks like a duck, it’s a duck because it was created with AI, so use it smart. I mean anything like mundane tasks, administrative, definitely with meetings. We use it with meetings. It helps with note taking. Something repeatable you can definitely look at AI to help with that. But it’s also been helpful from the creative standpoint. If you have a client on a fixed budget, they can’t afford video, but they have photos. Maybe you can animate that photo with AI, just enough to give you a little movement to help the conversion of the app when you put it on social media, or put it as a banner ad. So using it like that, it actually helps the client in the long run to save money, because they may be on a fixed budget, and you still want to help that client, especially any nonprofits. We all do our share of nonprofit clients where you try to help them out and with the billing and what you charge them and still try and give them a good product.
Houck, Houck Agency: We’re using AI more and more every day, as I’m sure all my colleagues here would say, and it’s getting better every day. But we create content for most of what we do at Houck Agency and we don’t like to use AI as a shortcut, but rather more as a force multiplier. We like it to enhance what we do. It helps us organize our thoughts. It might give us a new headline idea, or a couple other options that we might not have thought of. So we like to use it as a smart colleague, if not nowadays, a senior colleague that can really guide us and help us with what we already do.
Ryznar, 898 Marketing: AI is a tool. It’s the equivalent of handing a carpenter a handsaw or electrical equipment. You give that carpenter a greater propensity and opportunities to succeed and build, and that’s what it allows us to do when put it into the right hands. We’ve been leveraging AI for over a year now. I actually own an AI company out in San Francisco that is now sitting in the automotive and agricultural space. So we’ve seen how it works there over the last three years and adapted it to how we can augment what we’re doing and how we’re leveraging it to simplify solutions, to simplify processes, to help us understand how the consumer looks at it versus how we look at it. And what we’ve come to the conclusion is AI is the right discussion to be having, but there are two forms of it. There’s the artificial intelligence that everybody knows about, and there’s authentic intelligence of the human aspect that uses it and understands how to use it, and that’s really where the conversation is now starting to pivot toward. This is no different than the boom we saw in the dot com era, than the boom we saw with social media, than the boom we saw with apps. It’s a tool that all of a sudden starts to present itself, to simplify the processes and help augment what we’re doing. And so the idea that, yes, the fear is real for agencies, that where do we go from here? They still need to understand that our partners still require the understanding of what marketing actually is and how our skills can be even enhanced with those tools, and that’s why, as long as you we look at it as a tool and not as an extinction of what we’re doing, but a compliment to what marketing could offer. It’s a conversation that’s happening not just in marketing, though. It’s happening in accounting. It’s happening in manufacturing. It’s happening all over the place. With our kids, who are 11 and 13, I’m thinking to myself, what are they going to do when they graduate from college? How is that going to impact them? It’s impacting our global world, and as long as we view that as a tool and not a replacement then that’s where the beauty behind it really lies, and what its effectiveness can actually do.
Cross, iSynergy: I think it starts with the approach operationally. There isn’t a single thing that we do at iSynergy that AI doesn’t touch, from our acquisition department, sales and marketing to our delivery department with our content research. You don’t have to use these large research firms, something that used to take six months and cost somebody six figures. Now we can do it in less than a day, and it’s probably better. You still need human eyes always on it. That’s the one key you always have to have human eyes on it to audit everything. But we do a lot of AI implementation for clients, and it’s a tool, but it’s more about efficiency and those repetitions. People always ask, well, how can I use AI? It’s the wrong question to ask. The right question to ask is, where in my business can AI help me, and oftentimes using AI we do that audit, it puts a spotlight on where operational inefficiencies are, and AI will not fix that. If they don’t have their SOPs in place and they don’t understand what they’re doing, AI is not going to fix it. It’s only going to make them more effective with what they’re already good at.
Hulea, Pecchia Communications: Research is big. It helps fill that knowledge gap. We’re working with clients across a wide range of industries. But also it helps fill our gap of the knowledge by building that research and understanding how their audience is viewing it, but just reiterating the fact that it shouldn’t be your final output. I cringe when I see social media posts that were generated by AI – tons of emojis, all the adjectives, and it’s clear. There’s all of those telltale signs.
Business Journal: How do you take advantage of the ease and convenience of AI while maintaining authenticity and the human connection?
Hulea, Pecchia Communications: I recently came across this chart. It sets it up as someone who has good judgment and uses AI versus someone who does not have good judgment and uses AI. So somebody who has good judgment and uses it, they are called a turbo brain, versus somebody who does not have good judgment and uses AI. They’re called a slop cannon. And then for those of us who have good judgment but are not using AI, this chart refers to them as steady hands, so they’re still great workers. They have that great judgment. But then those who don’t have good judgment and don’t use AI. They’re dead weight. I think this whole conversation is so relevant, because, yes, we need to be talking about AI, we need to be using AI, and we need to stay with the times and get ahead of the curve. It takes both. It takes the steady hands. It takes the really good judgment, the senior level professionals who have known what they’re doing for years and years, long before AI. It takes both of those brains working together so you can’t take out the human appeal and the personality and the credibility of the human touch on the end product.
Farris, Farris Marketing: Jeff called it a force multiplier, and I think you still have to use it that way for creative as well. If you’re using AI to be your creative, you’re in sad shape. If it gives you the information you need to create something. Fine. But if it’s creating it, it’s junk.
Cross, iSynergy: AI, the large language models now, it’s just like back in the day with search engines. Most people don’t go to search engines for information. They go there for confirmation. And AI is exactly the same way. It’s always going to agree with you. It’s always going to tell you how smart you are and how great you are.
Ryznar, 898 Marketing: It’s an amazing psychological study, right? Because whatever you put in there, the first thing you get is an affirmation. What a great idea. Understanding policies and having those procedures in place as an organization is huge, just as much as you have HR policies, because this is open AI. And unless you’re investing in a closed off loop, understand that what you’re putting in there is not just used for you. So if you’re going in there and saying, ABC automotive dealership wants to sell X more cars, and these are my competitors, and I work in this market, and this is the budget. What should I do? Well, guess what? XYZ dealership, all they have to do is say, I need to take down ABC car dealer. How do I do that? Well, here’s what they’re doing. You have to remember that. You run into a very big liability and security issue for your own success by putting in specific details that you’re allowing that open platform to now ingest, store and use it to make its own ideas and inferences to if one of us would go and talk about another partner.
So for us, there are no specifics, there are no partner names, there are no budgets, there are no reports, because the minute you put that in an open source that’s out there for everybody. If we use the closed solution, ours is all private, so that’s not going to be out there. It’s a hefty investment, but that’s what needs to be done if you’re going to be using it in that capacity.
Cross, iSynergy: I’m sure every single one of us has an NDA [nondisclosure agreement] with all of our clients. You need a clause in there for AI because you’re getting information that’s supposed to stay within our four walls. And if you’re putting that into an AI platform, the AI is being trained on what you put in.
Ryznar, 898 Marketing: Our business premiums for our insurance skyrocketed because of this. Because we have to have enough coverage in case there’s a breach, in case there’s something that goes wrong that we’ve got to cover our own behind, but also protect our partners as well. So it’s not just about the digital policy coverages that you might have, or the information that you might be sharing. Now it’s you put this into Claude, and now Claude’s using it like it could trace it back to you and your account, and you’re the one who leaked it. It’s crazy.
Palowitz, Palo Creative: We have to worry about intellectual property, anything they’re getting ready to get patented. Now somehow that gets plugged in to AI, and now that’s exposed to everyone. Anyone who can properly put the prompt in to ask and pull it out like spaghetti and slurp it up, they have it. So we’re a closed work group is what we try to look at. And we definitely are cautious of what you plug in, because you want to be specific enough that it’ll give you a tidbit that you can take and then harness and use that as, maybe an added tool. But you have to watch what you put in, because it is exposure.
Business Journal: Consumers’ attention spans are short and becoming even shorter. How do you ensure your messages are resonating with people?
Cross, iSynergy: I’m going to push back a little bit on that. I don’t think attention spans are less today. People binge Netflix for 12 hours. I think their consideration span is shorter. So you have three seconds for them to give you credibility. And I think that we, as marketers, it’s all about leveraging that consideration span, that first three seconds, or a second and a half, depending on the channel, and making sure the copy is right, making sure the creator is right, making sure the hook’s right, making sure you’re delivering it to the right audience.
Houck, Houck Agency: I try not to take too much offense to the short attention span issue, because I do a lot of writing, and a lot of times that means, make it shorter. We engage in a lot of strategies. We have to make sure that every word deserves to be on that page or in that social media post. Everything in an email. For instance, the subject line is so critical. It can’t just be a throwaway thing. It has to be extremely well thought out. And that social media post has to be pretty tight, but has to be conversational. It has to be something that, as someone’s quickly scrolling through, they’re going to stop and want to read. It also could be a layout strategy on your website or in a document where you need to make things skimmable, because people just want to quickly read it. So it’s more attention to things like bullet points and subheads just so people can at least get the full ideas. You can’t expect that they’re going to sit there and read the whole thing.
Sabo, Clever: I’d add placement is also a strategy and how to capture future people’s attention. Because if you’re, one, on the right channel, and two, say you’re doing a digital marketing campaign – do I have the right demographics? Am I geofencing locations? Am I hitting people where I need to hit them? Because, if not, I’m sort of wasting that content. So I think also the placement of where that message is, and even the tactic of what the message is. Is it video? Is it social? Is it outdoor? Those things kind of go into how you are also competing for that attention megaphone in the wrong room.
Hulea, Pecchia Communications: I would add leveraging that content and getting the most mileage out of it. If you’re already putting the time into developing maybe a longer format video on YouTube that lives on the website, cut that down into short bits for social media, or send that out in an email blast. Put the content in front of people in a variety of forms, so that they’re more likely to see it. And then if they see it twice, it sticks with them more.
Ryznar, 898 Marketing: If there were one thing to remember from content development is a lack of consistency brings a lack of interest. So if there is an opportunity to be consistent in what you’re delivering and understanding what’s working, don’t abandon it. So that lack of consistency in location and content and how you’re delivering it, and what you’re saying and how you’re saying it. Your base, your customers, are going to become familiar with that, and that’s going to be dependable. Just think of what TV shows you used to watch when you were younger or even now. The reason why you go back is there’s a consistent theme through it. There’s something that interests you that you’re going to be dependably getting every single time, and that’s really what content has become. Social media now is no different than what TV was 40 years ago. Your organic content is your programs. It’s what people are going to address, long form video and content and the ads. The ads that are interstitial in between your scrolling of what you’re doing. So understanding that without that consistency, there’s going to be no interest. So don’t abandon something before you give it a chance to actually work.
Palowitz, Palo Creative: It’s that consistency you’re saying you build. We talked to these clients, partners here, about being a subject matter expert and you want to have that authoritative credibility on social, on your website, being consistent everywhere, so that they can build confidence that what they’re reading, seeing, hearing is viable and of interest to them. Having that consistent message, positioning and branding – tying it into someone. Maybe it’s the business owner, maybe it’s the VP of sales, maybe it’s the CEO. They are the subject matter expert that the people in that industry can go to and reference and that ties in probably the influence aspect to that.
Business Journal: How concerned do you think young people entering the marketing industry should be about AI and other technology changes? How would you recommend they prepare?
Farris, Farris Marketing: They shouldn’t be concerned at all. If you think you’re leaving college and you’re done learning, you’re dead, forget it. You’re just beginning to learn, especially in marketing today, you’ve got to keep learning every day. And who doesn’t like to learn? So you shouldn’t have any concern. You should just jump in. If you’re a hard worker, and if you love learning new things and trying new things, you’re set. The only thing I would say is, don’t think, well, I got my degree. I know everything. You know nothing.
Sabo, Clever: Two things we look for is if you’re resourceful and adaptable. If you can be those two things in this space, those are two great skills to have – be able to find the answers or figure them out, and to be able to change with the flow.
Cross, iSynergy: I think at its core it’s a tool, like we’ve all said. I was down in the fall to hear Ohio State’s president speak. In every course, and every major that Ohio State offers now has an underlying minor of AI because he knows, and they know that it’s just going to be inherent through our day to day for the future and beyond. So it’s just like a search engine, it’s just like the internet. It’s just like email, if some of us are old enough to remember when we started using email and having to adapt to that. So it’s exactly like that.
Houck, Houck Agency: It is a good reminder of how our industry changes a lot. How we marketed five or 10 years ago is way different than today. And there’s going to be another shift later for the graduates just coming out now. So I’d be more worried if I were the college graduate of how you’re going to find that first job, because AI is making it difficult for sending applications and resumes out.
Palowitz, Palo Creative: I think being patient, having persistence, being curious, being dedicated, and having stamina, because they want to get to it right away. You’re not in business for 30 some years being quick on things. You’re quick at things you do, but you learn. You can’t get to executive level in two years being out of school.
Ryznar, 898 Marketing: The two things that I think students should understand right now – and it’s because of their day to day usage of their devices that’s causing them these deficiencies in these two areas. The first is critical thinking. Go back and do some crossword puzzles, go back and read some books that are more critical thinking of why these characters are doing certain things, because they’re relying on social media and AI to give them… And so there’s no critical thinking to ask the question, but why, and what happens if I do this, so critical thinking, I think, is a huge piece of standing out from the crowd. And the second, we have 26 letters of the alphabet that have created some of the most amazing pieces of art and literature and music and emotional expression and help us in our daily lives. And the generation is using a picture to talk about how they feel instead of those letters to describe it. So I think the other aspect is learn how to effectively and confidently communicate, learn how to write, learn how to speak, learn how to hold conversations. Because once you tie that into it, the critical thinking part, you become in a very, very comfortable place that is irreplaceable because you add value and significance to AI. AI is not going to do anything unless you tell it to you. Kelly and Jim probably have a little bit more of a head start in that, because they’re in communications the whole time. You’re talking about shortening what you’re saying, but the idea that they know how to effectively use the English language from a communication standpoint, that is something that is irreplaceable. And it’s only going to be enhanced by people with AI. But you’re going to see a glaring gap when you have people who don’t know how to speak or write or talk and hold a conversation.
Farris, Farris Marketing: I agree with you 100% and I think one more way that people are skipping over today is having the type of marketing where you’re actually people together, whether you’re having some sort of awards dinner, whether you’re walking out into the store, where it’s interpersonal, one on one communications, or in groups, where people are together instead of remote. Not everything could be a digital message.
Hulea, Pecchia Communications: I would say for young people, don’t get caught up in imposter syndrome. I struggled with this a lot in graduate school, where you feel like you’re faking it and you don’t have what it takes. And I think AI really cripples you in that way too, because I could get the answer through AI, and it’s so much easier. But what everyone here is saying is so true about building relationships and being comfortable in the uncomfortable so put yourself in those uncomfortable positions so that you could build that confidence.
Business Journal: What do you think the biggest mistake is that companies make when it comes to their marketing strategies, or what’s the biggest misperception they have about marketing and its role?
Houck, Houck Agency: I think the one a lot of us would probably agree to is turning on the spigot and turning it off as business conditions and sales warrant. When things start going south sales-wise is not the best time to cut your marketing budget. And we don’t just say that because we rely on that for our livelihoods. It’s simply true.
Cross, iSynergy: I would say, not knowing where they’re going. You don’t go on vacation not having a destination in mind of where you’re going to go. Oftentimes you don’t know how you’re going to get there, but you have to have a destination in mind to be able to build a plan around. And also understanding their baseline of where they’re currently at. We talk to people all the time, and you ask them what’s your cost per acquisition? How many leads do you get each month? And people just look at you with a blank stare. And if they don’t know those numbers, we can’t help improve them. So we have to get that baseline and then help them define what the goal is. Lastly, making sure they have the capacity to handle us delivering that goal. Because a lot of times people ask for something that they aren’t so sure that they can handle. They might not have a sales staff in place – if it’s B to B sales or person to person – that can handle the lead flow that we’re going to help generate for them.
Palowitz, Palo Creative: I think realistic expectations. How many leads are you getting now, per month? If you can’t tell us that, how do we get a measure if we’re really delivering on that? I think it’s a big mistake just not having their house in order and being able to provide those numbers and be able to share those numbers in a confident manner. So then we can audit, start benchmarks. And then I think just being realistic with that, giving it time and not downplaying it as it’s easy.
Farris, Farris Marketing: I think if we’re going to do our job, say you’re starting a social media program with them, … it’s a great idea up front, but then trying to arrange it, it keeps getting pushed down. They have to make that commitment. There’s still time involved on their end that they weren’t necessarily thinking at first. I think that’s probably a big mistake. If you want a successful content program, you need to have access to people in the plant, people in the building and you need to be able to develop those things.
Ryznar, 898 Marketing: A common theme to all of this is to remember that this is a partnership. We don’t call our partners clients. We call them partners. So it’s reiterated to them that there’s a responsibility on their end, that this is a collaborative effort. There is no relationship that works when it’s one sided. There is a give and take on both sides that have to be involved in order to make that relationship work. So if you’re looking at a marketing resource like us, you have to understand that while we are experts and great at what we do, we didn’t get there because we know every industry and know every business and know every single facet of a company. We had good relationships with our partners that help make our strategies and their goals achieve and align so that everything that is being said is a collaboration and there’s a relationship there. So if you’re looking at hiring or outsourcing or leveraging a partner and just saying, Go do it and go make me money. No, that’s not how it works. We need help just as much as you need our help.
Sabo, Clever: I sometimes think also being comfortable getting a little pushback from your agency too. You are the client. We’re here to deliver service. I want you to be happy. I want you to love the end result, but I’m also the expert, so I’m gonna fight for something if I think it’s the right thing to do and politely and respectfully, but being okay with that back and forth. We’re not always gonna be on the same page. And how we get to that point is important, and feeling like you can, as the marketing expert, stand up for what you think is right and in their best interest and our client being open to that feedback.
Cross, iSynergy: Adrienne has a great point. The two most important words that I’ll ever say in a relationship are no and why? Because you’ve got to understand both.
Business Journal: What’s a good marketing plan consist of and what makes a good marketer?
Sabo, Clever: I think that creative can sometimes be one of the most important pieces, because it can break through if you don’t have the spend. A great message or great creative can cut through some people that are outbetting you.
Ryznar, 898 Marketing: Check your ego at the door. You’re gonna have to change. You’re gonna have to adapt. And it’s not about who is right. It’s what is right. If you always go back to doing the right thing for the partner, if you always go back to achieving the goal… That’s what helps make a good plan great is when individuals realize it’s not whose idea it was, it’s what idea is best for the partner and for the goal.
Farris, Farris Marketing: I think the best marketers are the best listeners. You listen and you learn. So before you ever come up with this idea, we sell the invisible. We tend to go, ‘let’s come up with something that’ll just knock their socks off.’ … But the reality is, the better listener you are and the better you are at understanding people, you’ll be a better marketer.
Business Journal: How much has the industry changed since each of you entered it? How much do you think it will change over the next few years?
Sabo, Clever: I’d use a fax machine when I first started. It’s changed a ton. We’re completely remote and fully digital. It’s changed completely. I think we all kind of got into this knowing that it’s one of those fields, it’s always going to be changing, and you have to be able to adapt and learn new things. There’s not a day goes by that I don’t learn something new.
Cross, iSynergy: That’s why I love it. There’s no monotony…I think you said it earlier: getting comfortable with the uncomfortable. Our industry literally day to day can change. The platform doesn’t upgrade. There’s a new release, a new platform. A new upstart comes out that gets on our radar. Literally every day can be different.
Houck, Houck Agency: A lot of the fundamentals of marketing and communications have stayed the same. When I first started, I was with a Fortune 500 company, and we had to use dial-up Internet, and we can only be on for a little bit. We had to hurry up and get off. But a lot of the fundamentals are the same. It’s just the technology we use to get there has changed a lot and it’s going to continue to.
Palowitz, Palo Creative: Nonstop change. When we started we were a catalog boutique agency, just worrying about catalog design and printing. Then it slowly evolved. So I’d wake up on the one side of the bed to do catalog work. The other side of the bed I was doing a web design… And now we’re with HubSpot doing CRM work, sales enablement, implementation, workflow sequences, all kind of stuff. It’s marketing, but it’s more sales oriented and it’s complex. I was a designer. I’m not designing anymore. I’m thinking about strategy and marketing and how to integrate communications and take it across different personas.
Cross, iSynergy: The principle, though, stays the same, which is, we have to be able to create relationships with people…
Business Journal: How much of a role does influencer marketing play in the industry? Is it beginning to fade, or shift to something else?
Cross, iSynergy: It’s shifting. There’s still a place for it. On our side, it’s better that now they have to prove more attribution. It’s less, we’re just going to throw a bunch of money at you and pray and hope that it works, and we might not get anything out of it. Now there are ways to prove that ROI, and I think that’s the way the pendulum has swung.
Sabo, Clever: There’s a lot more influence or education that we’re doing on behalf of our clients, making them guides, because they’re fielding a lot of questions… Their followers are coming to them and not the company, sometimes. And so they’re almost like a first line of customer service for certain things. And so they need to be educated, and they need to be speaking with the same brand voice and or at least knowing who to send them to. And I would say it’s less influencer, more content creator. Influencer, to me, is a very broad category. They could be lifestyle, they could be this, whereas a content creator, they’re a little more niche of an area. I think we’re sort of seeing a little bit of the decline of the lifestyle influencer. People are kind of hip to the sell and they know when it’s coming. And if I see link, link, link, link, link in your stories, then I know what you’re trying to do here. You want my commission. I think being thoughtful about the influencers that you’re working with, and definitely auditing them and making sure that they’re the right choice, but educating them, I am seeing as a big next step that we have to do.
Business Journal: Many of us are at least somewhat familiar with SEO, search engine optimization, but what is AEO, or answer engine optimization? What does that mean, and how is it different from SEO?
Palowitz, Palo Creative: Basically what has happened with AI, it is scouring websites, and with the answer engine optimization, it is tying into the Siris, the Alexas. So when someone says, ‘Hey, Siri, who’s the artist that sings that Italian song that I like?’ It scours the internet, and it’ll kick back. It still kicks back a lot of inaccurate information because it’s still trying to access certain platforms and maybe websites and whatnot. But what we’re talking to our clients about is being ready for that. You need that content for the AI and whatever robots are out there to crawl and find that information. Then to kick that back as an answer. Another one would be the generative engine optimization, and that is what’s coming up in Chat GPT and the different AI platforms where they’re scouring the content of websites… It’s created a discussion with our partner clients that we have to be ready for because a lot of them are starting to get educated with it too and obviously you want to talk to them about updating their website so they can be relevant and stay relevant, especially if they own a lot of market share in their specific industries.
Sabo, Clever: It’s a lot of incorporating FAQs into your website, in structuring the content in an ask and answer format. That way it can crawl it faster and be able to provide those answers to people quicker.
Houck, Houck Agency: I think Kelli and I are probably both salivating on this, because a lot of what we do ends up being higher on the results when it’s third parties telling our stories, whether it’s a media article, when it’s some third party saying it, that’s more authoritative. And it’s giving those AI AEO answers. It’s putting our brands higher on that list.
Ryznar, 898 Marketing: AEO is not SEO. It’s totally different. So if you think you’re doing SEO and you’re going to be successful at your AI rankings, you’re being misled, and that’s a huge misconception. They’re two totally different executions, units of measurement, methodologies and ways to deliver it. And so the idea that first you have to understand that it’s not a game that marketers are playing. And it’s happening and changing every day. Everybody is seeing organic traffic decline, because there’s a paradigm shift happening with AEO. It is now replacing your organic content. Individuals are not coming to your website to learn about things. They’re learning it through AI, and they’re learning it through AI because of what’s on different sites and elements in that capacity. And it’s changing the behavior. So if it’s two different things. You need two different processes and products and procedures in order to do it. We establish what’s called AI pulse. It’s a totally separate entity within our organization that’s totally focused on your AI search results, because it’s changing how your answers and how the content’s being related, how you disseminate information to different websites, how you track different metrics, and then, most importantly, how those search terms and what your website is catering towards. Your website is going to cater towards SEO, that’s great. But then understand that that’s going to impede and impair your AIO or AEO results. You have to find that delicate balance of how the two work together. If you’re going through your Google Analytics, you’re going to see your organic traffic plummeting. But it’s not just you. It’s something that we have to embrace and learn and understand that it’s two different things of how you approach it. It’d be the equivalent of saying, Well, I have a TV ad, so I’m gonna run it on radio. That’s where the rub is going to come into play, because it’s going to shift everything. It’s going to change everything. And now it’s no longer about educating the customer or the partner. It’s about having your content in a position where AI picks it up and AI understands that you’re a credible resource… While organic traffic is declining, engagement rates are going through the roof on Google AdWords and on websites, because all the information is already done and now when they get there, there’s just a higher conversion rate. They’re not kicking the tires. They know they want to use you.
Cross, iSynergy: Comparing AEO to SEO is like comparing color to size. They’re not even on the same spectrum. With SEO you have rankings and with SEO for the most part, you can control that content on your site, your inbound links, local SEO. With AEO, you can help with your own property, which is your website, but the largest knowledge base that most AI platforms use is Reddit. So it’s not even something that you own. You have to have Reddit and they self police. They have moderators. So you just can’t go on there and just spout and be a promotional type of post. You have to give value. And it comes back to the core of marketing. Give value, be an authority, and you’ll rank everywhere.
Ryznar, 898 Marketing: The idea, going back to influencers like Reddit, is going to be like you better have resources for influencers. You really better have the financial investment that you’re willing to make and understand that the value behind that is going to prove in the long run. You have to find influencers on Reddit. You have to find channels within there that you can look at those individuals and say, that’s someone we need to approach, because they’re an authoritative figure. We need to see if they’d be open to being an influencer or a content creator for us. It’s absolutely changed…I love finding comfort in the uncomfortable. I love that saying, because if you think about it, there’s never been a point in your life where you’ve gone through growth that it’s been painless.
Pictured at top: Local marketing professionals participated in the roundtable discussion March 18 at Courtyard by Marriott in Canfield. Pictured at the event are Rob Palowitz, Jeff Ryznar, Jim Houck, Adrienne Sabo, Steve Cross and Kelli Hulea. George Farris is not pictured.
