AI can address the talent shortage in marketing operations

AI is everywhere these days. It’s not surprising that AI is changing the way many industries do business. As martech continues to evolve, marketing teams are scrambling to keep up.

Too many MOps workers are feeling overworked and stressed. Businesses are left to deal with the three-pronged issue of hiring, training, and retaining qualified professionals due to the marketing operations talent deficit.

This situation has placed a strain upon management resources, and many seasoned marketers have been forced to return to entry-level work in areas such as content production – rather than strategic planning or optimization of performance.

Burnout and turnover

Demandbase reports that MOps teams become top-heavy without a new source of talent. The ideal MOps is a pyramid-shaped team. The team is composed of a concentrated group of experienced practitioners who focus on strategic initiatives, and more junior members are in charge for the day-to-day operation and execution. We found that the junior level employees were outnumbered by the average MOps teams, which left the higher level team members to fill in the gaps.

It’s hard to find the time to do the strategic work when the marketing operations role is so heavily reliant on the tasks and project within the ops department.

Senior and mid-level employees are bored with work that is too easy, or they try to balance their work with more strategic responsibilities. Burnout and high turnover are the result. Companies have to hire and train replacements rather than advancing their marketing vision.

MarTech first discussed the shortage back in 2022. The problem has not changed since then. It’s possible that the problem has gotten worse, as ops leaders have to balance their roles with figuring out how to use new technology.

Artificial intelligence, as expected, is the shining knight of digital armor. It’s ready to take on the talent crisis and help businesses overcome this challenge.

How can AI help with the talent shortage in marketing? Should we even entertain it?

AI helps you focus on strategy, not busywork

AI technologies such as ChatGPT make significant progress towards addressing the MOps shortage. AI can reduce workloads for marketing operations professionals at higher levels by automating repetitive tasks or simple ones.

It allows them to spend more time on strategic tasks and more advanced ones, resulting in a more effective and efficient marketing team.

Jessica, who is a MOps at a large tech company, loves finding new technology that will help her to add more value to both her job and her company.

She says she has been using Rev, a platform for sales development, to find similar target accounts and seed lists.

It is a fantastic tool that helps you focus and prioritize all your CRM data. It monitors your pipeline/funnel and the AI changes and adapts the algorithm when new deals enter or leave the sales cycle. It looks beyond firmographic information like company size, industry and other details and instead uses custom filters to focus on the ICP.

She also mentions tools like Regie.ai, which allows for custom personalization when reaching out to prospects. This helps sales reps be more productive. This creatively ties in hobbies or the use case of a prospect. Many more applications could be listed, but it is important to have the time to test and find them.

It’s less about being a tool-shy person than it is about finding the right places to use AI to improve strategy and execution within sales and marketing operations. The value of an integrated platform is becoming apparent to companies because it makes it easier to automate processes, define workflows and identify bottlenecks.

Dig deep: AI and marketing: 7 areas of success and failure

AI’s role in marketing operations

It may be easier to navigate the wild west of AI tools by looking at the task categories. We can then “delegate” work to an AI member.

Process mapping

You can create processes that are organized, efficient and scalable with the right AI tools. You can begin by using ChatGPT, which turns meeting notes and transcripts into a checklist of tasks.

You should be able, at the end, to turn around an inbound request in 24 hours without adding additional work or creating panic among your team.

Planning

AI automates a growing number of tasks, from forecasting to budget allocation and campaign optimization to targeting.

Data flow

2019 is the year of disconnected systems. If you don’t automate the data flow in your business, you will be left behind.

No one should have to do these tasks manually any longer.

Codes and their outlines

You don’t have an extensive development team? ChatGPT is a tool that allows marketing operations professionals who have development experience to quickly create the project code.

Data extraction

You have a CSV or a lot of text that you would normally send to someone else for a simple task. ChatGPT can be used to extract names, dates, and keywords from the text source.

Content marketing is faster

AI-powered tools, such as Hootsuite and HubSpot for social media scheduling or ChatGPT for writing content, can help you create and distribute your content with less effort.

ChatGPT shouldn’t write your entire blog post or landing pages, but you could quickly draft the bare essentials using your expertise.

Personalization

ChatGPT’s large language models can be used to create custom chatbots that are tailored for your business.

In the past, these bots were limited. Newer options still allow businesses to teach a bot everything from brand guidelines and customer profile data. This creates a personal conversation which can be passed on to a member of the team when needed.

Summary research and briefs

ChatGPT is not able to provide you with factual answers yet. However, you can copy and paste articles, white papers or research into the chatbot, which will then summarize its findings, implications, and possible course of action.

Keep an eye out for the latest tools that can help marketing managers better allocate resources, strategists with stronger predictive models, and marketing analysts with easier sentiment analysis.

Dig deep: 5 AI-based writing assistants in action

Balance AI and human expertise

Marketing operations can evolve from spreadsheet warriors and simple reporting teams to become full-fledged tech strategists that help shape the marketing and sales technology strategy in the long run.

Automating all “laborer’s” tasks will not replace the need for an architect. Without strategic design, you can build a home that will collapse at the first hint of wind.

Your frameworks and processes will set you apart from the rest of this tech race. Once standards are set, it is easier to tell your team when AI should be used and when humans are needed.

If you rely too heavily on AI, you run the risk of making costly mistakes and damaging customer trust.

For a better balance in marketing, companies can help their MOps teams to learn how to use AI more effectively, while still maintaining the strategic judgment of humans that makes great marketing stand out.

The first article How AI could help to address the talent shortage in marketing ops was published on MarTech.