Benjamin Ard00:00 — Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Sarah. Sarah, welcome to the show.
Sarah Balli00:05 — Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you having me here.
Benjamin Ard00:07 — Yeah, Sarah, I am excited. This is a subject that I think a lot of people are trying to figure out in their minds and understand where marketing is going in today's markets and with technology and everything going on. But before we dive into the subject for the day, would love to dive into your work history, background, all that kind of fun stuff so the audience knows a little bit about who you are.
Sarah Balli00:17 — Mm.
Yeah. So my name is Sarah Bayee and I am an external communications specialist. And I also do content creation and influencer marketing on the side. So I do a lot of fun things with marketing, kind of a well-rounded type of marketing, if I would say so myself. So a lot of fun things. And I also stream on Twitch. So I keep myself busy doing fun things.
Creative Things.
Benjamin Ard00:56 — I love it. That's awesome. Well, Sarah, we're going to talk about a question that everyone's asking themselves right now. Really, what is AI doing to the marketing space? And I love the subject that we're going to talk about that we kind of agreed on in emails back and forth, keeping the human element in the marketing during this AI era. So to kick this off, what are you seeing right now?
when it comes to companies like even replacing marketing teams with AI. Is it a genuine threat? Like should people actually be nervous about what's going on here?
Sarah Balli01:29 — You know, think it depends on who you ask and who you talk to because I've seen some numbers that suggest that up to 65 % of marketing jobs could not survive. But I've also seen some numbers that say that will be just fine. guess it really just depends on what sources you're looking at, what questions they're asking, and who they're asking. So it's really all about where that...
that data is coming from. Personally, I think it really boils down to the fact that I don't think that companies are replacing people. It's that they're just looking to replace the labor. And I think there's a big difference there because AI is incredible at speeding up execution, writing drafts, pulling data.
generating variations. But marketing has never actually been about output like that. It is, but ⁓ it's also about taste, timing, and understanding people. So AI can't generate content that is timed well. a marketer may take something that was just something funny that someone said on social media and
play a whole campaign based off of that. That's something very Wendy's-ish, I guess you could say. ⁓ AI is not going to be able to do that, but AI can do some other things too. So I think there's a lot of things there that is very human about marketing that AI can't do. I don't know.
Benjamin Ard02:58 — Yeah, I love that. Well, let's dive into that because that's my natural next question. Like as a marketer, I'm sitting here saying, okay, what can't AI do in marketing and like what can humans do that market like AI just can't figure out inside of this marketing machine and maybe going into like a little bit further into this discussion. what skillsets should I develop?
to actually feel somewhat safe in an AI marketing world.
Sarah Balli03:26 — You know, I was thinking about this the other day and growing up, there was like this big worry, you know, when Microsoft came out with like Word and PowerPoint. And I kind of liken it to that. A lot of people thought their jobs were going to be lost. They were going to be replaced by like Microsoft, PowerPoint and Word and all of these other things. When in fact, we just ended up using those as tools.
to make our work better. And I think that's what we're gonna see ⁓ with AI. And I think in marketing, since we are so creative, there's a lot of need for that still in the industry. There's still a lot of things that AI is not going to be able to do. Like I was saying, AI isn't going to be able to interact with the funny things that people are saying on social about your company.
They're not going to be able to see those very minutely, very well-timed things, but it can help optimize what your processes are. Say you have a very streamlined process for how you ⁓ build a campaign. It can help make that more effective, make it more efficient for you. There's a lot of different ways that it can help.
us as marketers. And I think if we just take a step back and breathe for a second and be like, okay, it's not the end of the world. The world isn't burning. I think we can see it more as a Microsoft Word or Microsoft PowerPoint and use it to our benefit.
Benjamin Ard04:56 — Yeah, I love that. So you can use it as a tool, but don't look at it as like the replacement for who you are, what you do, all that kind of fun stuff. Now it's easier to say this than to do this, but sometimes the CEO is sitting down with your CFO looking at the budget and saying, well, can AI actually get rid of this? I am curious what your response is to that. How can marketing teams approach?
Sarah Balli05:04 — Exactly.
Benjamin Ard05:19 — leadership who are like weighing the decisions of can a $200 a month Claude subscription get rid of people? Like, how do you react to that? And how do you actually have that conversation with leadership?
Sarah Balli05:32 — You know, I ask myself this every day, but I was also asking myself this before AI. So, you know, if I was asking myself these questions before AI, it's kind of like, what's the difference? Because there were tools coming out that could easily replace or feel like they could replace a marketing job before AI came out. mean, Canva existed before.
Adobe tools existed before and now AI exists. So I think what we need to do is just, if we can use AI to help better the business, then we'll start seeing better business. We'll start seeing the leads come in. We'll start seeing better impressions. We'll start seeing...
⁓ All these better things, but we have to start using it better too because if we just give it slop then it'll give us slop and That's not what's going to generate leads That's not what's going to give us impressions or engagement or whatever you need to better your business I think Whatever your KP eyes are that's what's going to
make the CEO and the CFO whoever is budget like making the decisions for the budgets. That's what's going to flip the switch for them.
Benjamin Ard06:55 — So I love the healthy approach, you know, the humanity that's the whole title of this episode, keeping the human in marketing. What does a healthy relationship with AI look like? What, you know, rather than saying that's going to replace us all.
What should a marketer say? Okay, cool. Let me have this healthy relationship and actually build with AI. What does that look like to you?
Sarah Balli07:17 — I ask myself this a lot because I don't think I have the perfect vision myself necessarily because I think We are still inundated with so many Negative things in the market right now Like oh AI is bad. Oh, it's terrible for marketing. Oh, it's this. Oh, it's that I think a Healthy relationship is kind of whatever you make it for your position because how I use
AI may be different than how you use AI. It's the same way with how someone may use Adobe Photoshop. I may use Photoshop one way, but there's a million different ways people can use Photoshop. Someone may choose to cut out an image in Photoshop one way, but they may use another tool to cut out the same image in a different way. We can all do the same thing, but maybe in different ways.
And as long as it feels healthy for you, as long as it's working for you, as long as it's creating the output that you deem is worthy for what you feel is meeting the bar for you and your business and your leaders, then I think that is healthy. If it's not meeting the bar, if it's not meeting the standards, if it is giving you slop, then that's obviously not a healthy AI use.
⁓ so yeah.
Benjamin Ard08:39 — like the conversation here about quality. The ability to say, regardless of the tool set that I use, I as a human, a marketer, as an employee have a standard of excellence. And I am going to use the tool set that best gets me there. Now, if that is, hey, someone is a fantastic Photoshop or Illustrator user, that's going to perform great. If that means someone using Mid Journey or something like that, it's really
Sarah Balli08:41 — Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Benjamin Ard09:07 — Not about how you get there, but it's about how you can get to the standard of quality, what that standard quality is and that you're maintaining that, you know, and if AI, if AI can write to that level, great. If it can't then use it for what you can get. But it doesn't mean that the bar gets lowered all of a sudden. And it's just a matter of how you choose to perform quality work. And that never changes.
Sarah Balli09:16 — Exactly.
Mm-hmm.
Exactly. And if the output isn't as high as you want it to be, maybe you can take what it is giving you and then you can like take it there with your own creativity. Use your creativity to take it to the next level. Because like what we have as humans is we can look at something and we can be like, ⁓ this isn't good enough. But what we can do then is then take it and make it good enough.
we still have that decision-making process. We are still creative enough as creatives, as marketers, to look at something and be like, I can make this better. I can, as everybody hates the term, but jazz it up.
Benjamin Ard10:10 — Well, it's cool is like, if you're noticing, hey, I'm having AI do this thing for me, and it's still not up to my standard of excellence, let me figure out how to jazz it up to the right level. What's cool is like 90 % of the market is just going to be satisfied with the output that you're getting from the AI anyways. And you can just say, sweet, I'm going to make mine that much better because it doesn't pass the sniff test. It's just not there yet. And I'm not willing to compromise my standards. And I think that's super cool. Yeah.
Sarah Balli10:20 — Yeah.
Yeah.
Exactly. Exactly.
Like, I don't have to compromise my standards of whatever I think is a good graphic just because AI is putting out something. Like, if it's not putting out a good graphic, then I can still go and make my own graphic and work on the side until whatever needs to be done gets done. Or I can just keep making graphics on my own. It is what it is. Just, we can use AI however we need to.
Benjamin Ard10:57 — you
Sarah Balli11:02 — in that healthy relationship.
Benjamin Ard11:03 — I love it. Yeah. Okay. One final question, because we're running out of time. Sarah, for marketers, we'd like to leave with tactical advice at the very end of the podcast. What can people start doing today and tomorrow and this week to A, build a better partnership with AI, B, maybe not have as much anxiety that the world is going to end with AI, or C, like really help bring the business along with the idea of, hey, this is a human enhancer and not replacer.
Sarah Balli11:07 — Mm-hmm.
Yes.
I think tactical advice is to breathe about it and realize that it is not the end of the world. Piece of advice too is to just take some lessons on it, some beginner lessons, because we all started somewhere, whether it be Word, whether it be PowerPoint, and we use those today, ⁓ experts or wherever we are in our PowerPoint journey that we are.
So let's do that with AI. Let's just start learning the basics and start branching out because you never know what you don't know until you know it. And so if you do like it, then you like it. If you don't, you don't. I think that it will be a requirement and it is a requirement for a lot of people already. So if you don't want to use it,
Sure, be stubborn. Don't have to. But I would suggest at least try it. At least take some courses on it and just try it.
Benjamin Ard12:25 — I love it. No ignorance. At least dive in, get your feet wet. think that's awesome. Sarah, well, we have run out of time. We like to keep these episodes short and sweet and to the point. For anyone listening who wants to reach out and connect with you online, how and where can they find you?
Sarah Balli12:28 — Yes.
They can find me on LinkedIn. My name is Sarah Bayee, B-A-L-L-I. You can message me on LinkedIn at any time. My DMs are open.
Benjamin Ard12:49 — Love it. For everyone listening, scroll down to the show notes, regardless of what platform you're on. We will link to Sarah's LinkedIn profile directly from the show notes. Click on the link, connect with Sarah, say you came from the podcast. That'll be great. Sarah, again, thank you so much for the time and insights today.
Sarah Balli13:05 — Thank you for having me, I appreciate it.
