Future-proofing your team

There's a lot of noise out there. 

There's all the talk about AI, AI, and, well… more AI. Then there's content overload, the rise of micro-communities, and whatever else is doing the rounds at the moment. Marketers are under a lot of pressure to keep up with what's next, so, understandably, many organisations are investing in shiny new tools and tech in the hope of future-proofing their marketing teams.

But having access to all that doesn't necessarily mean you're prepared for what's coming next. As Becky Gleave, Marketing Director at Audience Collective, says: "Future-proofing a marketing team isn't about chasing every new platform or panicking about the rise of AI. There will always be a new technology promising to transform the industry. The real differentiator over the next five years won't be who adopts tools the fastest, but who stays relentlessly focused on the customer."

Future-proofing isn't about the tools themselves, but how your team decides to use them. As more of the day-to-day stuff becomes automated, the real value lies in the skills teams bring around it.

Data is only useful if you know how to use it

If there’s one thing marketing teams rarely lack, it’s creativity. But they do sometimes struggle to know what to do with all the data they have. As Gleave says: “In my experience, the most common capability gaps aren’t creative or technical; they’re analytical. Many marketing teams are data-rich but insight-poor, collecting vast amounts of information without the skills or processes to interrogate it properly and translate it into action.”