How AI is Shaping the Future of Marketing with Angela Frank

The fundamentals of marketing have not changed since marketing became a thing. It's still all about talking to the right people, sharing the value that your offer creates for the prospect, and then bringing people into your systems.

Mm, that's good. And welcome to a new episode of Digital Coffee Marketing Brew, and I'm your host, Brett Deser. You could please subscribe to this podcast on all your favorite podcasting apps like this, help with the rankings, and let me know how I am doing. This week we're gonna be talking about the future or just future trends of marketing because I think it's actually a really good thing to talk about the next decade. Since we're still in the midst of ai, we really don't know what's gonna be going on with that, and everything else has been going on. I have Angela Frank with me, and she's a fractional CMO with a decade long track record of generating multimillion dollar marketing revenue for clients. She is the founder of the Growth Directive, a marketing consult consultancy, helping brands create sustainable marketing program, your marketing ecosystem, how brands can market less and sell more, helps business founders. Owners and corporate leaders create straightforward and profitable marketing strategies. But welcome to the show, Angela.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Yes. And the first question is, all my guest is, are you a.

I'm a little bit of both. I love to have one really good high quality cup of coffee in the morning, usually specialty. And I do a pour over with my V 60 and then the rest of the day because coffee's a little too strong for me after that it's tea.

And I actually understood all of that, even the V 60 part, 'cause I was a. Former, my former life or when I was younger, but also for those listeners that don't know, V 60 is basically a system to pour over your coffee. There's just different types of brands, different types of, pour over systems to use and use the V 60.

Yep.

All right. And I gave a brief your expertise. Can you give our listeners a little bit more about what you do?

Yeah, so at the most basic level, I help small businesses with their marketing strategy. Part of being a small business owner is your hands are in so many different projects. And so my job is to come in, create a streamlined and profitable marketing strategy for your, set you up for success in the long run.

Got you. So what are the top three marketing trends you foresee dominating in the next decade, and why do you believe they'll be significant?

Yeah, so you teased one at the beginning and that is ai. I think that the a, the way AI will impact future is multi-fold. One of the things that I'm keeping a close eye on is how Google and other search engines are implementing AI in search results. I think that when somebody goes to Google, for example, and searches for something, they're gonna get everything they need right there on the. Page, which will have a huge impact on organic traffic in the future. And so I'm encouraging clients and people that I'm just advising to build out a comprehensive social strategy to combat that. The other thing that AI will do to impact marketing is create. Make what you are doing a lot easier. So one of the tools in the podcasting world, Brett, I don't know if you're using it, is D script. And it's a great way to take your content and create social posts and a bunch of different assets from your long form content. And while there's still right now a little bit of cleanup. Nice. This is a really good example of how AI is creating a system for marketers to tap into, to create multiple assets from something that you've made once. The third thing is to be determined how AI will implement, infrastructure and provides you more comprehensive insights. There are some tools that are just coming to the market right now that will be able to assist you with that, but I'm really excited for the opportunities coming down the pipeline for AI to help you take your data and make sense of it. From a small business owner perspective, that's one of the biggest pain points. Aside from doing all of your marketing activities is now you have all this data, what do you do with it? I think AI will be really useful for that in the future.

By the way, spoiler squad cast is part of the script, so yes, I actually use the script because they're part of one subscription now. So yeah, I don't really use it for that. I usually marsh the filler words because it does a really good job of getting rid of those. But I use, I've used Opus Clips and I've used, I now use Man vo, I don't know, I got it through App Sumo, so it was a lifetime subscription, but that's what I use now. But I get what you're saying about the con, the event using AI is very helpful.

Yeah, I think that's really where I want to encourage people to start thinking about using ai. A lot of the things that people have used AI for when it started, when Chat GPT started to get really big was the content creation and I. From a marketing perspective is create a connection with your prospects. You're trying to create a human connection and build that trust. And if you're using chat, GPT or another AI language model to write your copy your social posts, that sort of thing, you're really taking that human element out of it. And you can tell that you're using AI to write these things, and so you're actually. Creating a negative element when it comes to trust you're ruining that trust with your brand.

Yeah, that makes sense. But from a one person marketing perspective, it does get a little, like switch gears and everything. So as a one person myself, it's easier to let it, I'll still skim it and see if it's actually good or not, but it's still a little easier just to let it do it itself because. If I'm trying to do seven different talk things, I only have so much brainpower to do. So many.

Yes, I totally understand. I have been a solo entrepreneur for over a year. My husband now just joined the team to help support some of that, the content needs that we have. And the way that I'm using AI is to help with brainstorming and also. Typing something up and I'm not sure how to put a nice bow on it for the final sentence. I use AI to support my workflow that way. I definitely understand from the solo entrepreneur perspective of wanting to use ai, and when I first launched my website, it was a lot of copywriting that I had to do. I did use. But I'd encourage anyone who has gone and done a lot of their things in AI to go back every once in a while, look it over, make sure it's still accurate, and try and add the human element as you're going, a lot of the things that we're doing in small business as a solo entrepr. Creating done things that are better done than perfect. And I totally get that. You just wanna make sure that you're continuing to keep it updated over time.

And then, moving on to like more of, because we talked about, you talked about data a little bit, data privacy since yesterday we had the big announcement that basic United States' social Security number addresses. Everything was stolen. So how are we gonna keep all that data and privacy? Basically protected because it seems like everything everywhere is being hacked and you have no control over how you can lock your things down. So how do you actually like care about the data, figure out what to use it and but also protect it at the same time.

One of the things as a marketer is the onus is on you to make sure that your customer data is being protected. And I think that the important thing if you are bringing that AI tool in to support your data, is to take the personal identifying information that PII out of the equation, make sure you're removing names, emails, phone numbers, all of that before you feed it in and make sure that you're using AI as a way to. Find trends in the data, not to share information with an algorithm that you don't understand how it's ultimately going to use that information. And so the way that I think that AI will help in that data processing is it will plug into your existing dashboarding tools that will already have that PII removed. And so you won't necessarily. And then that way it can help interpret the data and give you the takeaways. I do not see a world where you just take all of your customer an export of all your customer data and give it to an AI program and say, okay, now tell me who my best customer is, or something like that. That's not what I'm suggesting here.

Current models may not be able to do that, but we may be able to do that in the distant future.

Yeah. I think that there's quite a few tools who are trying to actively figure out a way where they can provide those insights for you. That's why it was a future prediction.

Alright. You talked a little bit about content, but what do you see for the future of content? Is it more use of ai? Personally, I would like to see frame generations for video editing, so the jump cuts don't happen anymore. They already have that in gaming with predicting games, future frame generation basically. So a little bit more in video editing because that will just help with. Cutting up things that you may actually wanna leave out and then just making it look seamless. But what do you see the future of content evolution happening?

Yeah, so from a high level, like I mentioned, the way that organic search will change will really. That we will create and use content in the future. And so the way that I see it most immediately is that organic traffic will contribute to your content strategy less and less. And so what you need to do is build out a social content strategy and then a blogging strategy that supports the content you're. Instead of traffic coming through Google, maybe you're a pool installer and you have a great blog post talking about all of the different things that you need to keep in mind when you're going to get a pool installed in your backyard. Now you can take that information and clip it up into different social assets and drive people through social organically or through. To that post instead. So you are still getting people to your website and engaging with that content. You may just be able to rely less on organic search traffic in the future.

And what do you see the role of influencers happening? I know it, I know when influencer marketing first came out, it was, try to get the biggest ones. Maybe have some big ones but not. Everybody should be your big ones. 'cause that gets expensive. Do you see more of that evolving with more, I guess looking for more niched groups so you can hit that targeted marketing focus instead of just the millions of followers and maybe you get that 1% of.

Definitely. I love this example of influencer marketing because something that I teach a lot about is that the fundamentals of marketing have not changed since marketing became a thing. It's still all about talking to the right people, sharing the value that your offer creates. Prospect and then bringing people into your systems, you can convert them into a customer. And so taking this knowledge to influencer marketing, we are going to be able to use influencers as a tool very much like we do now to get people to the right people to learn about our product. The offer. That our offer solves and then getting them into our system. And I think you were spot on when you said that tapping into niche markets will be an increasingly valuable way for marketers to do that. I think especially as we've seen some of the slowing in the economy current. ERs are looking for more cost effective ways to do those three things. And so by using a more niche marketer, not only will your influencer marketing dollars go a lot further because you can maybe tap into in two or three influencers where previously you would get one or really big one. So have a improved ROI because you're talking to the right people who care about the offer that you can provide.

Yeah, it's also probably looking at other content besides social, like podcasting. From the numbers, it looks like it's more attractive than even TV ads Now mean TV ads aren't that great anyways, but if, but there's also some stats saying that pod load, which is basically having too many ads, is also a downside. So there is a give and take. Should marketers start to even look more towards podcasting? Because podcasting as a medium, it's gonna keep on growing for a while. There is no sign of slowdown. Plus social at times is also cheaper than anything else I.

Definitely as a podcaster myself, and I know Brett, like you can relate, we definitely want to continue to promote. Podcasting is a great way to advertise your products. When I'm working with small and medium sized businesses, what I always encourage is that you start. MVPA minimum viable product, and you take that and apply it to what you're doing in marketing. And so it's possible that podcasting could be a huge growth lover for your brand, but you won't know until you test it. And so what I would recommend is starting with a testing budget, make sure you're giving enough money to. But you're not throwing all of your advertising budget in one basket. And so that advice for podcasting ads is the same advice I have for launching any new marketing channel. I do think that podcasters have great trust with their audience, and so it's definitely something I would encourage testing into and to say that it will work for every brand or every business.

Yeah, that's fair. Not every channel's br for every industry. You have to pick and choose which ones. But if businesses are looking at podcasting, I always recommend about six to a years month of budget for it because podcasts, slower pace of people eventually going over to you. It's not gonna be quick. It's not gonna be easy. It's gonna be a slow building of they keep on hearing your ad on that one podcast or a few podcasts or whatever.

Definitely. I think what you were saying about that repetition is really key. The other thing is when they're listening to a podcast I'm usually working out, some people are commuting, and so when you are thinking about creating that ad, try and think about something that would be so juicy that they would stop what they're doing. They would pull over on the side of the highway and take action on your ad. I think that's a great way to get a little bit more of an immediate return on your advertising dollars, but there's huge benefit just in that repetition and that brand awareness and building that recognition over time as well. So there's really two great ways that you can utilize podcast ads for your business

and. Marketing. It's always evolving. This industry just evolves all the time. So how can marketers cultivate a mindset of just cultivating and staying ahead of the curve? Because AI right now is nice to know, but eventually it's gonna be a demand to stay ahead of that because. AI is here to stay. It's not going anywhere.

Definitely. I think one of the things that has always helped me is to watch for a couple of months how the landscape is evolving to see where the big changes are happening. Of course, if Google puts out a new. Learn how that's going to impact your traffic. However, if there's a new tool or something that's a little bit more novel that comes onto the scene, wait to see if it is being adapted. And the reason I recommend this again, is mostly because I work with small and medium-sized businesses, and so they are already focused. Areas. And so if you're a marketer, make sure that you're focusing on the things that are driving growth for your business. Wait to see if something looks promising, and then once you see a couple of businesses talking about it, you can still be in that group of early adopters and start testing into that channel or that. That MVP concept that I was talking about. And so in this way, you are focusing on what's making the best returns for your business, but you're also staying on that cutting edge and making sure that you are not falling behind in your marketing career or in your business is growth when it comes to marketing.

What emerging marketing tags do you believe will become mainstream in the next five to 10 years?

Yeah, I think that what is really most important is that anything new that comes onto the scene, you're making sure that you are bringing your core message, your core offer, and talking to the right people. I. While we might see that, for example, organic search changes in the future, we wanna make sure that anything new that we're doing, we're bringing the core elements of marketing into that. I think one of the things in addition to AI, is going to be the rise of the personal brand and how we're able to tap. These brands that are maybe bigger than the influencer themselves, but it will be a great marketing tool for businesses, I think it is now, but even more so in the near future. But again, what's going to be most important is how you are positioning yourself with these new tools.

Between traditional and digital marketing will evolve in the next 10 years because we're starting to, even email marketing, which I always call the dinosaur of marketing for digital, is still very viable today. And still like getting those, placing those ads on your doors or in the mail can still. Revenue, TV ads still generate revenue. So how do you see the, melding or evolving of the two combined?

Yeah. I think something really cool that has happened in just the last couple of years is the ability to track offline advertising. The way that you can track them in the digital world. So things like tracking phone numbers on your direct mail QR codes, where you can track how many times that was scanned, unique website URLs that you have only on your tv TV ads or your direct mail. Those sort of things will help you determine. On that in a way that you maybe couldn't have a few years ago. And so I think that different businesses will have different marketing channel mixes that work best for them. Meaning some, you're still gonna kill it in direct mail, whereas others direct mail will not work for you at all. And you are finding that digital ads are really. I think the most important thing is that at the end of the day, you are tracking everything that you are doing online and off to make sure that you can attribute success to the marketing dollars that you are attributing to each channel.

And so that's like through promo codes and QR codes, if it's the physical part of your marketing. Obviously you can probably use the same thing, but some way of tracking it. 'cause physical, unless you have a QR code or like a coupon code, it's hard to track if it's actually worked.

Yes, definitely. And I think that's been one of the largest pain points in that more traditional market. Especially with the advent of digital, if you do a radio ad for example, it's still pretty difficult to attribute success to that because you are requiring someone to remember you, your unique coupon code, and then go to your website when they get to wherever they're going and then put that in. But for things like direct and you can use that. That coupon code or a QR code, you can use a special URL that's attributed to your direct mail campaign. But also you can use this in TV ads, things like that as well to help attribute success to what you're doing.

And as the founder of the growth cl direct. You see the role of marketing consultancies changing to meet future business needs?

One of the reasons why I started the growth directive is because I was working several in-house, high level marketing roles out of growth, that sort of thing. And I realized that the companies that I was working for while they were making between two. Million dollars a year. They really didn't need someone full-time in that role. And I think as business ownership continues to create these wealth opportunities in the developed world, we will continue to see the need for. Consultants, fractional CMOs to support these businesses. As a small business owner, you are focused on so many different things, like I've mentioned, and so having somebody come in and own that strategy for you in a way that grows your business without you having to make this huge upfront finance. To hire someone full-time as a CMO, for example, that's going to be at least a couple hundred thousand dollars a year commitment, if not more. This is only going to be more and more relevant

as a marketing professional. What's one emerging trend that you would like to see hit the mainstream in the future?

Like actually for people to focus on getting the basics right in their business. I think that from me, I come from a heavy startup background, and so people are always looking for the next growth hack and things to do in their business, and what I've noticed is that comes at the expense of neglecting the foundation. A solid marketing strategy. And so while there are great new tools that are coming on the horizon, I think making sure that you've taken and put first things first in your business is what will set you up for the long run.

Foundations for no reason at all. So it's always good to know the traditional.

Yeah,

and so people are listening to this podcast. They're wondering where can they find you online to learn more?

Yeah, so I have mentioned that I also host a podcast. It's called The Growth Pod. You can find that at growth pod fm, and we chat a lot about what we were talking about today. Brett and other business building tool, you can hear from me, but I also do interview style podcasts just like this one.

All right. Any final thoughts for listeners?

I think that as a small business owner, it's okay to do less, and that actually produces more results for your business. So if you're feeling overwhelmed, let this be your permission to focus on the things that are actually producing results in your business.

All right. Thank you, Angela for joining Digital Coffee Marketing Brew, and sharing your knowledge on marketing and the future trends.

Brett, thank you so much for having me,

and thank you for listening. As always, please subscribe to this podcast and all your favorite podcasting apps. The five Star review really does help with the ranking. I'm doing and join me next week as I talk to another great thought leader in the PR and marketing industry. All right, guys. Stay safe. Get to understanding the traditional side of marketing, plus the future trends plus ai, and don't do as much, do less and see you next week later.