Stop Chasing Shiny Objects and Do This Instead

Marketing leaders are falling into shiny object syndrome instead of building systematic growth strategies. Kathryn Rathje, Partner at McKinsey's Growth, Marketing & Sales Practice, explains how to escape the pilot trap that's plaguing marketing organizations. She outlines a framework for rewiring marketing functions around data and AI fundamentals, distinguishes between one-way and two-way strategic decisions, and shares McKinsey's approach to creating scalable personalization workflows that drive measurable business value. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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  From advertising to software as a service to data, across all of our programs and clients, we've seen a 55% to 65% open rate.

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  Getting brands authentically integrated into content performs better than TV advertising.

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  Typical life span of an article is about 24 to 36 hours.

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  If we're reaching out to the right person with the right message and a clear call to action, then it's just a matter of timing.

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  Welcome to the Martech Podcast, a member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. In this podcast, you'll hear the stories of world-class marketers that use technology to drive business results and achieve career success. Here's the host of the Martech Podcast, Benjamin Shapiro.

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  Let's move on to our next question. What's the most common mistake you've seen marketing leaders make this year?

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  Yes, I think this year and many years, it's shiny object syndrome. Like I right now have heard so much of, oh, well, I was at this conference or I was at, you know, when I was in Cannes or I went to this, you know, this broadcast and I learned about this one company that does XYZ thing and we're going to pilot them. And so I have so many of my clients right now that have all of these like little mini, I'm going to pilot with this one vendor because somebody else told me about them as opposed to like, how do we actually fundamentally rewire our function in the age of AI and

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  data and start with that and then plug in the things that we need to make that happen? It feels like everybody right now is plugging in all of these things, whether they're by vendors or even homegrown solutions as opposed to really just saying like, what, what are we trying to do and what do we need to make that happen?

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  I've got this. Personal challenge to myself to not talk about AI in every podcast. I want to point out, we made it 25 minutes and 31 seconds. Before mentioning the term AI, that's actually a new record for this year. And I knew we were gonna end the streak when I talked about common mistakes. My assumption would have been, oh, well, we're gonna do everything totally different because we need to use AI. As opposed to we're going to automate what we already know works using AI. How much of a distraction has artificial intelligence become for marketers? And is that leading to more mistakes than it's leading to good?

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  I think it's a huge distraction right now. Not to say that I don't think there's value in it, because I do think that there is. But I think it goes back to the shiny object syndrome we were just talking about, which is where right now, everybody's calling everything AI. Whether or not it's actually AI, right? Or what type of AI it is. Because you know, last year it was all about the year of generative. And this year, it's all about the year of agentic. And like, who the heck knows what next year is gonna be, right? But I think I know, and I've seen that there is significant value in automating what we're doing and using multiple different types of data sources that we haven't been able to use before and being able to create more

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  personalized versions at scale, which is always a rate limiter, right? When we, when we used to get to, get to personalization. But it goes back to, like, what, what is the workflow of marketing, right? And clean sheeting it a bit, right? Of like, here's how it works today. You know, what, where are the opportunities that we can automate or make things more efficient? But also, like, what could it look like in the future? And I feel like a lot of folks don't have a vision for what that is. And look, we don't know what is gonna exist, like I said, next year. And so I think the key here is, what's that vision? What's the one-way doors and two-way doors of the choices that you're making to get to that vision? And how do you set yourself up for as many two-way doors as possible?

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  While still actually starting to drive value forward?

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  Okay, and that wraps up this episode of the Martech Podcast. Thanks again to Catherine Rasg, partner at McKinsey, for joining us. If you'd like to contact Catherine, you can find a link to her LinkedIn profile in our show notes or on martechpod.com. You can always visit her company's website, which is mckinsey.com. And on mckinsey.com, you can find their recent research report, which they have partnered with the Association of National Advertisers as well. And if you haven't subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of marketing and technology knowledge in your podcast feed, hit the subscribe button in your podcast app or subscribe to us on YouTube and we'll be back in your feed next week. All right, that's it for today, but until next time, my advice is to just focus on keeping your customers happy.

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  Thanks for listening to the Martech Podcast, an I Hear Everything production. Looking to launch or scale a podcast like this one for your brand? Then visit ihereverything.com.