Welcome Chris Baker, Founder of Totem, he shares his expert insights on the future of marketing, AI’s transformative role, and key strategies for brand growth as part of the MarTech Thoughts series.
How do you describe your job to a 5-year-old?
We help brands grow with better online strategies.
What is the one marketing platform/app/solution you can’t live without? Why?
LinkedIn – as my way of staying connected to my friends, contacts and industry at large
Currently, what are you primarily looking for in your digital marketing efforts? Awareness, engagement, conversion, or retention? Why?
For our organization, Totem, our primary focus is on creating high-quality content and delivering value to our industry through research and insights. Therefore, engagement is our main goal.
At your organization, what marketing tasks are suitable for automation, and which tasks still need a human touch? Is there any part of the marketing process that includes AI?
We use AI mostly for research and ideation. Automation is also employed with some of our communications systems.
Our own experience with using AI has been instructive. In early 2024, Totem created a market research white paper (for our own marketing). In this white paper, we used Meltwater AI tools to complete detailed research – on a global scope – showcasing data/insights on 170 countries. We also used Mid Journey to visualize the data, creating personas for all regions featured in the report.
In sum, AI allowed us to increase the scope of insights and analysis dramatically (170 countries). The report has been viewed and downloaded more than 15,000 times.
What will be the next evolution in marketing technology that we can expect in the coming years?
In terms of marketing technology, AI is the most notable evolution in play, so the maturity and sophistication of AI are the most interesting advancements. I also see a combination of AR/VR becoming an incredibly important innovation for brands as the quality of those technologies improves.
What are the key challenges when implementing new technologies or platforms for the first time in your company, and do you have any suggestions for making the process smoother?
Start small enough to (1) ingest learnings and apply them to future activities and (2) ensure that any failures are manageable. We generally advise our clients to experiment with the AI features available in existing systems of record (e.g., Salesforce, Meltwater, Hootsuite, HubSpot, etc.) as a way to mitigate the risks of application errors. More extensive efforts can be pursued from there, using the insights gained from these small experiments to tackle larger, more open-ended goals.
A big thank you to Chris Baker, Founder of Totem, he shares his expert insights on the future of marketing, AI’s transformative role, and key strategies for brand growth. If you want to connect with Chris, feel free to reach out via LinkedIn!
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Last updated: August 2024
