Toss Up: AI-driven Analytics or Traditional Market Research?

VP of Marketing at EZO, Rob Freedman, delves into the world of AI-driven analytics versus traditional market research. Discover how EZO's innovative asset intelligence and management solutions are transforming organizations globally. Join Rob as he explores the dynamic landscape of leveraging technology for strategic decision-making. Show NotesConnect With:Rob Freedman: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // Newsletter // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee 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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  The Martech Podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast? I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth, and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit iHereEverything.com.

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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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  Welcome to the Martech Podcast. I'm your host, Benjamin Shapiro, and today we're going to discuss everything-led growth. Joining me is Rob Freedman, who is the VP of Marketing at EZO, which is a provider of innovative asset intelligence and management solutions that are trusted by thousands of organizations worldwide. Their credibility is backed by a vast global clientele and a proven track record in multiple industries. And today, Rob and I are going to talk about is product, sales, or marketing-led growth right for you? All right, here's my conversation with an old friend, Rob Freedman, the VP of Marketing at EZO. All right, lightning round, Rob, last one here. Toss up.

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  Would you choose to invest in AI-driven analytics or traditional marketing research if you had to pick one?

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  AI analytics, in fact, making that investment as we speak.

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  Tell me more.

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  Running leaner, I think, as companies run leaner, as teams need to scale faster and move faster. It's a force multiplier. And despite the hallucinations that we spoke about earlier, AI is tremendous at parsing data and finding patterns and helping you sift out the signal from the noise there.

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  It's funny, I have mixed emotions. I think that it's hard to figure out which one you should rely on. I think that there is an order of operations here. When I don't have data, I'm doing traditional marketing research. When I'm figuring out what the need is from my customer, what the human wants, I want to sit down with people and talk to them. I want to understand my customers, sit down, do my market analysis in the old school way as opposed to relying on AI to tell me what the world looks like, right? AI is a historical look back. It only has data from the past. It doesn't have the ability to predict and look forward. So I think that when you're getting started, when you're doing something new, even if you're in an existing company, you still need to do your homework. You have to do your market research.

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  When I'm analyzing past results and trying to understand trends, then I'm having an artificial intelligence to sort of be my guide to understand what has happened. But I think there's a question of, are you looking forward or are you analyzing the past?

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  I look at that as being like the art and science of marketing and how leveraging the AI does put a lot of emphasis on the science part and not doing the market research or not doing too much of the forward looking is a disservice to the art part. And you need both, you do need both.

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  Yeah, I had an interesting conversation with somebody, I can't remember his name off the top of my head. So apologies if you're listening to the podcast, who basically has created this notion of synthetic data, which uses a large language model with billions and billions of data points to essentially predict what survey results are going to be. And so you can basically do your market research. Understand if your questions are going to be effective before you actually go through and do your market research.

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  That's pretty cool.

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  And I'm like, that sounds like hocus pocus. And he's like, yeah, we tested it. 80% of the responses are identical. So the use case for this notion of synthetic data is to understand if your survey is going to work before you actually ask the survey questions. And then you go and you take what's been validated with synthetic data into the market. So maybe there is a blend between our tops. The question about whether you should be AI driven with your analytics or rely on traditional marketing research. All right, Rob, any last words you want to say about XLG, your company, your work, anything else you want to add on before we let you go?

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  I'm going to say, don't be afraid to blend. Many companies use a hybrid approach. There's nothing wrong with that. You're not doing something wrong. Find ways to combine those elements to make the most powerful and the most, I guess, pleasant journey for your buyers possible.

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  It's an art and a science. You have to blend creativity with your technology. Truer words have never been spoken. Rob, it's always great to have you on the podcast. Thanks again for being my guest.

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  Thanks, Ben.

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  All right. And that wraps up this episode of the MarTech Podcast. Thanks again to Rob Friedman, the VP of Marketing at EZO for joining us. If you'd like to contact Rob, you can find a link to his LinkedIn profile in our show notes. You can send him a message on X. His handle is Rob Freedman. That's R O B F R E E D M A N. Or you can visit his company's website, which is EZO.io. If you'd like a summary of this podcast, or if you'd like to apply to be our next guest speaker, head over to martechpod.com. You can also find the MarTech Podcast on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or even on TikTok now. And if you'd like to contact me, let's connect over on LinkedIn. My handle is Ben J. Shap, B E N J S H A P. If you haven't subscribed yet, and you

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  want a daily stream of marketing and technology knowledge in your podcast feed, hit the subscribe button in your podcast app, and we'll be back in your feed tomorrow morning. 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 iHearEverything.com.