In today’s world of business, marketing technology plays a significant role in enabling organizations to stay ahead of the competition. With the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI), businesses are now able to leverage powerful AI-driven tools and solutions to boost their overall brand growth and ROI. Scott Leatherman, the Chief Marketing Officer at Veritone, is one of the leading experts on AI and marketing technology. In this article, we will take a closer look at his insights into the growing impact of AI in marketing technology and what marketers need to focus on to drive overall brand growth and ROI.
Leatherman has spent over 26 years in the marketing technology space, working with some of the biggest names in the industry, including SAP and Oracle. He started his journey at MarketFirst in 1999, where he developed an applet for abandoned shopping carts and demos with smart refrigerators sending emails with decision criteria. Over the years, he has become an expert in multichannel marketing, data modeling, SEO, and AI, among others.
Leatherman now serves as the CMO at Veritone, an AI platform company that is disrupting several industries with innovations that are changing the way enterprises go to market. According to him, Veritone has a best-of-breed MarTech strategy that leverages solutions such as Demandbase, HighSpot, Infinigrow, and Qualified. Additionally, the company has improved visitor engagement by leveraging interactive content and analytics via Ceros. Recently, Veritone migrated to Pantheon, and Leatherman is thrilled with the improved site performance and overall WebOps ease of use.
Despite the growing adoption of marketing technology, the industry still faces several challenges and lags, according to Leatherman. He notes that AI-washing is one of the biggest issues facing the industry, with many companies claiming to use AI in their solutions when, in reality, they are a long way from leveraging ML/AI. Additionally, he notes that with the explosion of data, few companies have a data model strategy, and most are still reliant on cookies. However, Google’s cookie deprecation clock is moving closer to the end of cookie-based marketing, and companies need to prepare for GA4, which will require a cookieless GTM.
Leatherman notes that SEO has become a significant focus for Veritone, from on-page optimization to off-page validation. He says that every team member has a role in improving SEO rankings, and the company leverages Yoast SEO, Screaming Frog, and Semrush to improve/scale their collective efforts. According to Leatherman, SEO has become the art and science of marketing, and marketers need to focus on getting it right to drive overall brand growth and ROI.
Regarding AI in marketing today and the use of the cloud, Leatherman notes that AI-enabled buyer’s journeys are still super powerful. He says that AI-driven content and lookalike persona/ICP mapping can accelerate the journey and widen the funnel. He adds that conversational cognitive engines for CS have a bad rap, but the NLP-empowered sales and marketing bots are the future of the digital web to lead quality and scale. He mentions that Veritone selected Qualified after an exhaustive search and evaluation effort to improve their web to lead production, and the investment has made a 4x ROI in the first six months and a 14x pipeline ROI.
Regarding sales and marketing teams’ alignment, Leatherman notes that it is essential to hire PMMs with real sales experience and an aptitude for understanding markets. He adds that finding a demand gen lead with deal desk experience can significantly benefit the team, and a data analytics person who likes to write copy can be an A/B testing powerhouse. He believes that marketing and sales Ops should deliver solutions to the field within an established sales methodology. According to Leatherman,
there should be a mutual understanding of the buyer’s journey, with marketing and sales teams aligned around the same goals and objectives. He says that sales enablement platforms such as HighSpot can improve sales productivity and reduce time spent searching for content. Additionally, he notes that marketing should play a critical role in shaping sales enablement and driving its adoption within the sales team.
Scott Leatherman’s insights on AI and marketing technology are valuable for marketers looking to stay ahead in the fast-paced world of digital marketing. His experience and expertise in the field of AI and marketing technology provide useful guidance for businesses looking to leverage AI to boost their brand growth and ROI. From SEO to AI-enabled buyer journeys, businesses can benefit from his insights into the latest trends and best practices in marketing technology. By focusing on alignment between sales and marketing teams and leveraging powerful AI-driven tools and solutions, businesses can drive overall brand growth and ROI in today’s competitive landscape.
