Week 7 – MBA6101 – How Does Automation & Evolving Workforce Impact Me?

There is a terrific online article on the pros & cons of Google Ads with 10 pros and 7 cons. Here they are:

Most of the "pros" column boils down to the power of data, and if you are using Google Ads for your own business, this means you own the information: first party data. Knowing how to leverage the information and translate it means you can recalibrate your marketing activity with the click of some keys. In addition, every single one of the "pros" ties back to the suggestions provided by Levinson in his book, Guerrilla Marketing. This translates into some solid advice for maximizing your dollar and reaching your customer with the right message, at the right time. In the "cons", each bullet underscores the importance of conversion, meaning, having someone who is searching for something you make (product) or provide (service) is of no consequence if they don't pull the trigger and buy or make contact with you/your company. And knowing how to interpret or read the data is a huge hurdle for those individuals not familiar with Google Ads. I also appreciate the fact that it mentions how critical it is to understand how a consumer searches. If you are trying to be clever in the copy on your site instead of being down-to-earth and realizing how someone might seek out the product or service to solve their problem, you will miss out on them ever finding you.

Google Ads' impact on the marketing industry is significant, "...we conservatively estimate that for every $1 a business spends on Google Ads, they receive $8 in profit through Google Search + Google Ads. This is huge and small business owners would not be priced out of the large corporations that have advertising agencies create their ads and manage their spend. My kids know that the influencers they follow make a lot of money app (Google, YouTube, social networks) monetization. In a nutshell: a business would be remiss in not leveraging Google Ads.

Social Channels are immensely lucrative and easy to use, both for the influencer and the user. The market continues to grow as visualized in this chart:

Instagram is the most popular platform for brands who engage in influencer marketing. And like any relationship, requires an investment of time to develop content, build trust, and provide value. "After seeing posts with product information on the platform, 87% took a specific action, like following a brand, visiting its retail store, or making a purchase." That's exactly what a business seeks! On Facebook, video ads are the highest performing ad units "because they encourage users to stop and pay attention to the content." The best ads are those with a hook in the first 5-8 seconds that trigger the click to 'learn more' and ultimately to convert to a sale/close the deal. 

I do see the trend of clients (brands) pulling campaign management in-house. "To better protect their reputation and ensure campaign effectiveness, more brands are starting to create and implement their campaigns in-house instead of relying on agencies. They’re wary of fake influencers and the likelihood of middlemen falling for such influencers." Working in the advertising business, I can tell you that it is critically important to vet all influencers, not just by the agency's standard, but also taking into account what the client/brands value and making sure that any influencer speaking on their behalf (paid spokespeople, for example) don't have any hidden surprises, because those surprises are usually never good and can negatively impact/have an effect on the brand.

So what are the best careers in digital marketing if that's the space where all the players are? The seven hottest jobs right now in this sector are:

1. Content Manager & Content Strategists
2. VR Developers & Editors
3. SEO and SEM Specialists
4. UX Designer
5. eMail Marketing Specialist
6. Digital Marketing Managers & Directors
7. Analysts and AI Specialists

My current role falls under bullet #6 and I love everything about what I do: shaping the advertising, laying out a marketing plan, optimizing output based on inputs, and continuously learning & refining as I go. If someone is working outside the advertising and marketing industry, there might need to be a realistic expectation that she/he/they will likely need to start at the bottom and work their way up. As mentioned in class, learning online learning is the easiest and fastest way to learn, especially when you might not have a lot of time on your hands yet are looking to pivot existing skills mid-career. 

I strongly believe that the digital marketing job is constantly evolving. One of the ways to maintain a pulse on things is to setup Google alerts or follow key players in this space on LinkedIn or read articles & trade magazines/sites that talk about all the innovation happening r-i-g-h-t-n-o-w. "According to LinkedIn, the 'Digital Marketing Specialist' role is among the top 10 most in-demand jobs, with 860,000 job openings. The most requested experience in digital marketing includes social media, content strategy, SEO, analytics, and more." One piece of advice: if you're not a data person, become one. Understand what the data is telling you and take appropriate action to optimize it for you or your client. Becoming the human that can do that will ensure you have a role in the future as the game keeps evolving & changing.

Well, what about automation? Is my job going to go the way of the dodo? Not according to a study done by Harvard Business Review of 1,500 companies. Findings? "Firms achieve the most significant performance improvements when humans and machines work together." [emphasis is my own]. "Humans need to perform three crucial roles. They must train machines to perform certain tasks; explain the outcomes of those tasks, especially when the results are counterintuitive or controversial; and sustain the responsible use of machines (by, for example, preventing robots from harming humans)." That's brilliant: train-explain-sustain. First, train. Machine-learning algorithms must be taught how to perform the work they’re designed to do. Humans will be needed to do that. Second, explain. As AIs increasingly reach conclusions after processing millions of pieces of data vis-a-vis processes that are not always transparent, human experts in the respective field that is leveraging AI would need to explain the behavior to non-expert users. Third, sustain. Organizations will require employees who continually work to ensure

the AI systems are functioning properly, safely, and responsibly. 

In addition, "Smart machines are helping humans expand their abilities in three ways. They can amplify our cognitive strengths; interact with customers and employees to free us for higher-level tasks; and embody human skills to extend our physical capabilities". So, rather than feel a sense of dread that there will be no need for humans and there will be significant job loss, it is important for businesses to reimagine a world where the more monotonous or repetitious tasks are not just outsourced (as was the trend over that last three decades--globalization), but are machined so that the human can focus on problem solving, thought-leadership, and collaboration with machines. It will behoove a person to be able to translate that knowledge into actionable progress to further improve process. How better than to have a seasoned employee help develop those skills?! That's the first step, how can the operations/process be improved?  Next, putting key stakeholders into a room to brainstorm how the team, business, or sector 

might be able to collaborate with AI systems with the goal of improving the way things are being done at present? The third step is for companies is to think about scale and how to sustain the solution the stakeholders brainstormed/proposed. To me, this is true transformation of business. Keeping the tenets of business top-of-mind, from speed-to-market, to flawless execution. From customized solutions to specific consumers to harnessing the power of data to constantly evolve. 

"Company roles will be redesigned around the desired outcomes of reimagined processes, and corporations will increasingly be organized around different types of skills rather than around rigid job titles. Some of those skills are what one might expect (for example, proficiency in data science and data wrangling), while others are less obvious (for instance, the ability to use simple machine learning tools to cross-sell services). Organizations that use machines merely to displace workers through automation will miss the full potential of AI. Such a strategy is misguided from the get-go. Tomorrow’s leaders will instead be those that embrace collaborative intelligence, transforming their operations, their markets, their industries, and—no less important—their workforces." (Wilson & Daugherty 2018).

References:
Digital Marketing Institute. (2022, January 17). 7 of the Hottest Digital Marketing Jobs. DMI. https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/7-of-the-hottest-digital-marketing-jobs 

Duggal, N. (2022, May 16). Why Choose a Digital Marketing Career in 2022? SimpliLearn.com https://www.simplilearn.com/why-choose-a-career-in-digital-marketing-article 

Johnson Jones Group. (2021, December 17). Is Google Ads Worth It? 17 Pros & Cons Of Using Google Ads In 2022. Johnson Jones Group, a digital marketing agency. https://johnsonjonesgroup.com/is-google-ads-worth-it/

Santora, J. (2022, March 29). Key Influencer Marketing Statistics You Need to Know for 2022. Influencer Marketing Hub. https://influencermarketinghub.com/influencer-marketing-statistics/ 

Wilson, H.J. and Daugherty, P.R. (2018, July 1). Collaborative Intelligence: Humans and AI Are Joining Forces. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2018/07/collaborative-intelligence-humans-and-ai-are-joining-forces