Here’s a startling reality: while 88% of marketers believe AI and automation are essential for meeting customer expectations, they’re only using about 56% of the tools they buy. This disconnect raises important questions: Are marketers investing in the wrong tools, or are they simply not harnessing their full potential? I spoke to several marketing experts…
In the first few years of business, small companies come up against many different problems. And – you’ve probably guessed it – some are harder than others to overcome. According to Shopify, the average annual business rate of business failure from 2019 to 2023 (for companies started only half a decade ago) is a scarily…
Orchestras are difficult. One reason is that we’re really good at noticing when they’re out of tune. Just a tiny bit off changes our perception of the sound. The other reason is that if the performers wait for a leader in their section to go first, every entrance and every attack will be muddled. You…
Well, maybe not. In 2024, worldwide gift card sales will pass a trillion dollars for the first time. It’s a good grift. Surveys show that the buyer spends about 21% less per gift than they do when they actually buy something, while the recipients of the gift find themselves spending 61% more than the value…
Lousy tools are dangerous. They endanger our safety (physical or emotional) and undermine our work. Lousy tools are pretty easy to avoid, because they reveal themselves whenever we use them. Great tools are magical. They multiply our effort, amplify the quality of our work and delight us, all at once. It’s mediocre tools that we…
As a content professional with almost a decade in the game, I have been a part of several content marketing teams and projects. While each project came with its own objectives and obstacles, one thing remained constant: a consistent underestimation of what a content marketing team achieves for the organization at large. The natural assumption…
Welcome to Creator Columns, where we bring expert HubSpot Creator voices to the Blogs that inspire and help you grow better. In his book The Coming Wave, Mustafa Suleyman predicts that AI will be able to successfully build a business in a few years. You would just need to write a prompt like, “Go make…
Over at Masters in Marketing, Caroline, Laura, and I have interviewed some very bright minds from some very bold brands. We’re talking Liquid Death, New Balance, Oatly. But we got to wondering: What happens when noted marketing masters get to ask each other the questions? What do the innovators want to know from each other?…
Will generative AI steal the heart of marketing? Will execs have a change of heart about creative? This marketing year in a review gives a special nod to the human Dr. Seuss and his fictional Grinch.
If it happened to us, our memory of it is a story, our record of it with us at the center. Even if it’s on video, even if other people were there, our narrative and the context and the play by play belong to us. The useful question might be: “Is my story helpful?” And…