AI's Impact on Modern Marketing Strategies with Steve Olenski, Chief Marketing Officer at Stan Ventures

[00:00:02] Hey everyone, welcome back to the Outcomes Rocket. So excited you tuned in to another episode of our podcast because today I've got the privilege of hosting Steve Olenski on the podcast. He is an amazing leader in marketing, serving as a Chief Marketing Officer of Stan Ventures, the number one Indo-American SEO and link building company in the world. He's known for his strategic marketing acumen. Steve has earned the nickname the CMO Whisperer.

[00:00:32] For his ability to guide and mentor marketing leaders from the biggest brands in the world. He also hosts the CMO Whisperer podcast where he shares his insights and interviews with marketing and business leaders as well as world-class athletes and celebrities. We'll make sure to link that up for you guys to check out. But today he is on the Outcomes Rocket. So with that, Steve, welcome.

[00:00:57] The pleasure is all mine, my friend. How are you today?

[00:01:01] So great, man. It's so great to be with you again.

[00:01:04] Yeah, I'm really looking forward to this.

[00:01:07] Likewise. So look, we're going to talk all things marketing today. We're going to talk trends, changes, and ways that our healthcare leaders listening to this podcast can make the most out of their marketing programs.

[00:01:19] So really, before we dive into it, man, I'd love to just hear your story. What got you started into marketing?

[00:01:25] There's some things I didn't mention, like you were previously a writer at Forbes.

[00:01:30] Like, what got you into this game?

[00:01:32] Wow. That's a good question. Usually when people ask me about my career path, I say it's been as straight as a circle.

[00:01:38] It's been all, it has literally been all over the map from different ad agencies, copywriting, senior copywriter, credit director, to marketing side roles at different companies.

[00:01:51] I was communications director at Oracle.

[00:01:53] You mentioned Forbes.

[00:01:55] I was a contributing writer there for 10 years.

[00:01:57] I just got into this world of just fascinated by why, when you see an ad, what prompts you to do something, right?

[00:02:06] What are the words that we use? Like the writer in me.

[00:02:09] That's where my first love came in copywriting.

[00:02:12] And then I got into more of the marketing side, the strategic side.

[00:02:17] Why? What are the numbers behind that ad?

[00:02:20] And how did it run?

[00:02:21] And what impressions did it get?

[00:02:22] And all those KPIs that we know and love so well, maybe we don't love, but you know what I mean.

[00:02:26] Yeah. And just the whole package of the world of marketing and advertising.

[00:02:31] I am an absolute junkie.

[00:02:33] I would love talking to people like yourself about this world and learning.

[00:02:38] Because if I ever meet anybody who says they know everything about marketing advertising, I walk away because there's no such thing.

[00:02:46] I love that, man. Well said.

[00:02:47] Yeah, we share the same geeky instincts for the space.

[00:02:51] And I think that curiosity is super important.

[00:02:54] There's been a ton of changes in media and marketing in the last three to five years.

[00:03:01] And so as leaders listening to this look to use marketing as an engine to drive growth, what can business leaders do to adapt to all the changes?

[00:03:09] Yeah, that's a really open-ended question.

[00:03:12] And right at the top or near the top, let me look at the media side first, right?

[00:03:19] The proliferation of so many now other quote-unquote media outlets above and beyond back in the day when you and I, not that you're as old as I am, but you're old enough to remember that there were there's traditional Forbes and the Journal, Time Magazine, let alone the broadcast networks.

[00:03:36] And then the cable news came out.

[00:03:39] But now there's so many with Substack and Medium and the social channels, TikTok and Twitter have become news sources.

[00:03:48] So then what's happened is that proliferation has also lent itself to, let's just say, some nefarious people of doing not-so-nice things when it comes to the world of media and the news especially.

[00:04:02] But what happens is we as marketers now get lumped in by consumers where the skepticism is rampant about the news in general.

[00:04:13] Well, then that skepticism permeates into our world of marketing and advertising.

[00:04:17] Meaning how can I believe what you're telling me if the people doing the quote-unquote news are lying to me?

[00:04:23] So it's a really interesting time.

[00:04:26] It's very much – I don't want to go so far as to say it's a tipping point, but it's really close in terms of ethical journalism, ethical marketing, and knowing where that line is and how to convey that message to the consumer.

[00:04:43] Look, I'm a big believer because we've talked offline.

[00:04:46] Authenticity is the most important thing for anybody in life in general.

[00:04:50] It's even more important, I think, for marketers and brands to be completely authentic, completely transparent at all times.

[00:04:56] So when it comes to the media side of what we do, it's a challenge.

[00:05:01] I'm not going to lie to you.

[00:05:02] It's a challenge knowing, do I run an ad on X Twitter?

[00:05:05] We all know what's happened there.

[00:05:08] Do I run an ad on Facebook?

[00:05:12] Where's my ad going to appear?

[00:05:14] Is it going to appear next to a not-so-nice ad for something not-so-nice?

[00:05:18] And am I going to be lumped in because of that guilt by association?

[00:05:22] So the media side is really challenging.

[00:05:25] There's a lot of players.

[00:05:27] You really got to know your audience first and foremost, which I know is Captain Obvious, but know where your audience likes to go and play.

[00:05:33] From the marketing side, those same channels have also now given room and opportunity for brands to connect with consumers well above and beyond.

[00:05:45] Again, I go back to direct mail.

[00:05:47] Yes, I'm old.

[00:05:48] No comment.

[00:05:49] It's still effective, man.

[00:05:50] It's still effective.

[00:05:51] Oh, listen.

[00:05:52] Direct mail has come back around full circle, I believe.

[00:05:55] And in fact, I read something where even Gen Y and Gen Z like direct mail, which sounds oxymoronish in the digital age.

[00:06:03] But direct mail and then when email marketing came into vogue, and if you remember, the personalization consisted of saying, well, dear Saul, dear Steve, oh my God, you can put my first name in an email.

[00:06:14] Of course, that's long gone.

[00:06:16] But email is still another old dinosaur that will always be effective.

[00:06:19] But now with social, people are using TikTok as a search engine.

[00:06:25] Snap as a search engine, right?

[00:06:28] It's just, it's, the world is so different.

[00:06:31] And what I haven't gotten to yet, which I know we're going to get to, is that little two-letter acronym that's in the, and it's the elephant in everybody's room, as I call it, and that's AI.

[00:06:41] And the impact it is, will have on everything we do.

[00:06:47] It will absolutely, it is affecting everything now.

[00:06:50] It will affect everything tomorrow and the next day and the next day.

[00:06:53] It's just a way of life right now.

[00:06:55] Well said, Steve.

[00:06:56] Yeah.

[00:06:56] And I love your call out to print and the mailers.

[00:07:01] When everybody runs a certain direction, the way you get attention is you run the other way.

[00:07:06] And since, since everybody's digital, go physical, man.

[00:07:10] I love that idea.

[00:07:12] And how many of you all are thinking about that?

[00:07:14] I recently attended a couple months ago a payer meeting, AHIP.

[00:07:19] It's the American Health Insurance Providers Meeting.

[00:07:22] They're doing mailers, dude.

[00:07:23] Before I went to the, before I went to the meeting, and insurance companies are doing mailers because that's, they know that's how they get consumers to act.

[00:07:31] I was getting mailers telling me to go to specific booths.

[00:07:36] Yeah.

[00:07:37] Yeah.

[00:07:38] I'm like, this is awesome.

[00:07:39] I love it.

[00:07:40] And I stopped by their booths.

[00:07:41] Not all of them, but some of them.

[00:07:43] Yep.

[00:07:44] Yeah.

[00:07:44] It works.

[00:07:45] It works, man.

[00:07:46] Well, you called out a lot of challenges.

[00:07:49] And so out of all the challenges in the media and in marketing and all these choices, what would you say is the biggest challenge facing marketers today?

[00:07:58] And how could they overcome it?

[00:07:59] The biggest challenge I think for marketers, not only today, but even over the past X number of years, is delivering a very consistent message across the channels.

[00:08:10] And it's not easy, but it can be done.

[00:08:14] And that's offline, online, digital, social, email.

[00:08:19] It's hard when there's so many different sources of data to bring all that single source of truth.

[00:08:26] As we used to say at Oracle, that one data point that can speak to Steve Olenski, this is his one data point.

[00:08:34] And this is where we interact on social, on email, on offline, on online, and in-store.

[00:08:40] To bring that all together.

[00:08:42] It's not easy, but it can be done.

[00:08:44] That to me is the biggest challenge for marketers is to deliver that uniformed message to consumers, but also acknowledging, hey, I know you just bought these pair of shoes.

[00:08:55] I'm not going to market you to the same pair of shoes because the minute I do, you're going to think you don't know me.

[00:09:00] How many times does that happen?

[00:09:02] And it's because of the silos.

[00:09:04] I jokingly say there's a reason silo is a four-letter word because it's the death of so many brands.

[00:09:10] And what brands still to this day, as we approach the end of 2024, which is mind-blowing, to the outside world, it's one company.

[00:09:19] It's not the email marketing team doesn't talk to the content team, doesn't talk to the social.

[00:09:24] No consumer says that.

[00:09:26] A consumer just says, brand X doesn't know me because I just got marketed the same product I just bought a week ago.

[00:09:34] So not having that consistent message is a massive challenge.

[00:09:38] And we've all done it.

[00:09:40] I think we're all guilty of this misaligned channel communication issue that Steve's brought up.

[00:09:48] What can marketers do today to overcome it?

[00:09:51] And you mentioned AI.

[00:09:52] So let's touch on that, too, in that answer.

[00:09:54] Like, how can they use AI to stay aligned?

[00:09:57] And how is AI, in your eyes, seeing it impact media and also marketing?

[00:10:03] So AI is obviously, like I said earlier, it's the elephant in everybody's room.

[00:10:08] And at the very least, I would hope, operative, that marketers around the world are at least, quote-unquote, using it in something as common as ChatGPT at this point.

[00:10:20] Right?

[00:10:21] Because if they're not, I don't know what to tell you.

[00:10:23] At the very least, you should be playing with it, quote-unquote, in ChatGPT.

[00:10:27] Oh, yeah.

[00:10:27] Right?

[00:10:28] You should be doing a lot more with it than that.

[00:10:31] But at the very, very least, putting in prompts in ChatGPT.

[00:10:35] Right?

[00:10:35] No matter what it is.

[00:10:36] No matter what it is you're looking for.

[00:10:38] AI, talk about Captain Obvious here.

[00:10:40] It's the ultimate game changer.

[00:10:42] But there's a caveat to that.

[00:10:44] And the caveat is it's a very, it's a tool, first and foremost.

[00:10:49] And I tell people that.

[00:10:50] It is not the catch-all.

[00:10:51] It will not solve all your problems.

[00:10:53] It is no different than any other tool in your toolbox.

[00:10:56] But like any other tool, the more you use it, the better you get at it.

[00:11:01] Yeah.

[00:11:01] The challenge is AI is constantly changing.

[00:11:04] It is, and again, back to what I said earlier, if you ever meet anybody who says, I know everything

[00:11:08] about AI, tell them politely, get lost.

[00:11:12] Because there's no such thing.

[00:11:14] I know for a fact there's people using AI to generate creative ideas, to generate entire

[00:11:19] creative campaigns, for example.

[00:11:21] That's incredible.

[00:11:22] There's people using, marketers using AI to write marketing plans.

[00:11:25] To put a prompt in.

[00:11:27] Now, the massive caveat I always say to people is do not rely solely on AI.

[00:11:33] Do not take a chat GPT, a Gemini, pick whatever AI tool you want to use as gospel.

[00:11:41] Because if you recall back in the day before AI became AI, meaning in vogue, one of the major

[00:11:48] concerns was inherent biases within AI.

[00:11:51] Right.

[00:11:52] Mm-hmm.

[00:11:52] That's a massive concern.

[00:11:54] And it's still prevalent today.

[00:11:56] And I warn marketers all the time, you have to be really leery.

[00:12:01] Use AI, use it to support and augment and even validate some of your thinking or even generate

[00:12:07] initial ideas.

[00:12:08] But don't use it as, okay, AI wrote this email for me.

[00:12:12] I'm going to use this verbatim.

[00:12:14] Do not do that.

[00:12:15] Because then what will happen is two things.

[00:12:18] Marketers will get lazy and the personalization that we all fought to get over all these years

[00:12:23] will slowly erode.

[00:12:24] I love that, Steve.

[00:12:26] You got to use it, but don't let AI do your thinking for you.

[00:12:31] Exactly.

[00:12:31] Yeah.

[00:12:32] I love that.

[00:12:33] I was going to say, and at our company, Stan Ventures, we're the SEO experts in the world.

[00:12:38] And people are asking about how's AI affecting SEO?

[00:12:40] And it is, but it's still to be determined, right?

[00:12:44] How it's going to happen.

[00:12:45] So that's why you still need to work with, yes, I'm going to be a little self-fragile,

[00:12:49] companies like Stan Ventures to help you navigate through the world of SEO.

[00:12:53] Because look, I always jokingly say, remember the death of email?

[00:12:58] Email was dying years ago.

[00:12:59] SEO has been predicted to die many times over.

[00:13:03] These things will never go away.

[00:13:05] They're marketing principles, right?

[00:13:07] And it's no different than email and direct mail and SEO.

[00:13:11] These are all, they will always be important.

[00:13:13] The challenge is, the need is to work with the right company who understands those trends.

[00:13:18] Mm-hmm.

[00:13:19] I love that.

[00:13:20] And I love that you went there because we've seen these different channels once be prominent,

[00:13:26] but they lose their prominence, but they do not lose their place in the arsenal of tools that you

[00:13:32] need to effectively market.

[00:13:34] So I love that you framed it that way because I really agree.

[00:13:37] And also this idea of use AI.

[00:13:40] And as you use it, you'll start seeing more applications.

[00:13:44] You'll get better at it.

[00:13:45] So you're not going to be replaced with AI, but you will be replaced with other humans using AI.

[00:13:51] That's one of my favorite ones, right?

[00:13:53] That's, I love that.

[00:13:54] I'm stealing that.

[00:13:56] Look, we oftentimes think about marketing as a driver for leads and awareness.

[00:14:02] We oftentimes don't think about marketing for customer acquisition.

[00:14:06] And you and I were having a really awesome discussion pre-podcast about that.

[00:14:11] What role does marketing play in customer retention and experience?

[00:14:16] Yeah, it's massive on both fronts.

[00:14:18] The retention is that, just to use even the root word of that word of retention is retain, right?

[00:14:24] So you retain that awareness, right?

[00:14:27] Now you can make the case that, okay, a brand like McDonald's, does McDonald's really need to do a lot of retention marketing?

[00:14:35] Probably not because it's McDonald's.

[00:14:38] But most of the brands in the world don't have the equity that a McDonald's has.

[00:14:42] So when it comes to retention, it's that constant, think of your email inbox, right?

[00:14:49] Whatever goes out of your purview is out of your sight, out of your mind.

[00:14:53] So you don't know about it.

[00:14:54] So the retention look at is moving it back to the top of your inbox.

[00:14:59] That kind of, and I just thought of that analogy, right?

[00:15:01] I like that.

[00:15:02] By the way.

[00:15:02] That's a great analogy.

[00:15:03] Actually, I like that.

[00:15:03] It's top of mind and it's above the fold, which I know is an old newspaper term.

[00:15:08] And some people may know what that term means.

[00:15:09] But if you picture an old newspaper, we would get newspapers, whatever was on that top above the fold.

[00:15:17] That's how an inbox is.

[00:15:18] That's how retention marketing works.

[00:15:20] You're staying top of mind, but you're not crossing the line.

[00:15:24] Oh, what's that line, Steve?

[00:15:26] The line is where you're getting into that annoying two, three emails a day, two, three emails every couple days.

[00:15:33] No, you got to know where that line's drawn.

[00:15:35] And I can't answer that.

[00:15:36] You can't answer that.

[00:15:37] That's very individualistic for any brand manager to know where is that line to remind people, hey, we're still here, right?

[00:15:46] That's part one.

[00:15:47] Part two is, and I am talking, I'm going to get on my soapbox here.

[00:15:53] Find me where it is written, Saul, that every single communication from a brand has to try and sell something.

[00:15:59] It doesn't exist, right?

[00:16:01] I'm being sarcastic.

[00:16:02] But how many times do we get email after email from brand X and they're always trying to sell you something?

[00:16:10] Oh, yeah.

[00:16:11] Right?

[00:16:12] As opposed to just, hey, check out this event we just had.

[00:16:16] Or here's something that happened in one of our stores or if it's a brick and mortar.

[00:16:20] Don't try to sell me something every single communication.

[00:16:24] That's not retention.

[00:16:26] That's annoyance marketing.

[00:16:27] I just coined that phrase.

[00:16:28] But that's annoyance, right?

[00:16:31] And then you alienate people, right?

[00:16:34] So that's retention.

[00:16:35] From customer experience, now I'm going to loop it all back to that single source of truth, right?

[00:16:41] And having that one data point as best you can to create that messaging where I'm acknowledging, I'm noting, I'm showing you, I know.

[00:16:52] You were in my store.

[00:16:53] You were on my website.

[00:16:55] You did this.

[00:16:56] You clicked on an email.

[00:16:57] Now that experience is going to be reflective of those different stops that you made.

[00:17:05] That's awesome, man.

[00:17:06] I love thinking about marketing in this way because it's against the grain.

[00:17:13] And flow, conversion, retention.

[00:17:15] And when you think about those three steps in any business, we tend to think about marketing on the flow side, sales for conversion.

[00:17:24] You look at your customer success team for retention.

[00:17:28] But let's listen to Steve Olensky, folks.

[00:17:31] Marketing also has a function in retention.

[00:17:34] So great.

[00:17:35] Look, I really am enjoying this discussion.

[00:17:38] I've got one more for you.

[00:17:40] And maybe we're going to do a part two because this is just a lot of fun chatting with you, Steve.

[00:17:44] Elaborate on the importance of maintaining that consistent brand message across all channels.

[00:17:50] I know we touched on it, but what I want to leave the listeners and viewers with is tangible ways they could do this.

[00:17:57] And how does that tie into customer experience?

[00:18:01] The quick, and I'm going to elaborate, but the first piece of advice to any marketer listening to this is always put yourself in the shoes of your audience.

[00:18:10] Again, it may sound obvious, but any marketer who's done it more than 30 seconds knows you can get really lost in your strategy, right?

[00:18:19] And then the email team does their strategy.

[00:18:21] And the social team says, and those silos start coming up.

[00:18:24] And then the messages get disjointed.

[00:18:26] To the outside world, again, I'm repeating myself, but it's so important.

[00:18:30] To the outside world, you are one company.

[00:18:32] You are one brand.

[00:18:33] You are one message.

[00:18:35] The minute you show dysfunction, that's when the consumer is going to get turned off.

[00:18:40] They may stay loyal.

[00:18:42] I don't know.

[00:18:42] They might.

[00:18:42] I don't know.

[00:18:43] But why take that chance?

[00:18:45] Why take the chance of alienating someone, especially somebody who's been a loyal customer of yours?

[00:18:49] So I cannot stress the importance of that consistent brand message across all the channels, whether you're talking to somebody on X, on email, in store.

[00:19:01] I'm not saying it's easy.

[00:19:02] It's not.

[00:19:03] But the benefit and the return are enormous.

[00:19:07] So having that really consistent basic tone, which I haven't used that word yet, the basic tone.

[00:19:14] Stay true to your brand.

[00:19:15] You have brand guidelines.

[00:19:17] Hopefully you should.

[00:19:18] Stay true to your brand guidelines.

[00:19:20] Stay true to your brand voice, right?

[00:19:22] Because if the minute you start deviating from that, even in just one channel, wait a minute, why are they talking to me this way?

[00:19:28] They never talk to me this way.

[00:19:30] It's the same brand.

[00:19:32] Then they're going to get confused.

[00:19:33] So the ultimate message is, I preach this and I speak about this, is that having that one consistent voice and tone in all communications with your customers and acknowledging and knowing.

[00:19:47] Like, let them know, without being creepy, of course, let them know that, hey, did you enjoy that new garden shovel that you bought?

[00:19:56] Anything I can help you with?

[00:19:58] As opposed to trying to sell them the same thing again?

[00:20:02] No.

[00:20:04] That's awesome.

[00:20:05] Now, great, great close there, Steve.

[00:20:07] And I agree.

[00:20:08] What are we doing to support our customers and what they've already bought?

[00:20:13] Yep.

[00:20:13] And how are we offering them value?

[00:20:15] And let's make sure all of the messages we send to them across all channels aren't selling all the time.

[00:20:23] Thank you.

[00:20:26] You've left us with a lot to think about, Steve, and we thank you for that.

[00:20:30] What final thoughts and advice would you leave our listeners with?

[00:20:34] And for anybody that wants to connect with you and learn more about what you do, what Stan Ventures does, what's the best place that they could follow you and learn more?

[00:20:43] Awesome.

[00:20:43] So Stan Ventures, very easy, is stanventures.com.

[00:20:48] You can find me on LinkedIn, Steve Olenski, O-L-E-N-S-K-I.

[00:20:54] Same on Twitter, X.

[00:20:56] My podcast you referenced, thank you for that, is CMO Whisperer.

[00:20:59] Whisperer was the extra E-R-T.

[00:21:01] Hit me up.

[00:21:02] Saul knows I love a good conversation, like he does.

[00:21:05] He's a brilliant conversationalist.

[00:21:06] I love to talk to people.

[00:21:08] By all means, hit me up.

[00:21:09] So that's where you can find me.

[00:21:10] As far as final words of wisdom, I'm going to repeat myself.

[00:21:14] And only because I believe in this so much, and I've lived my life this way, and this was in the first 30 seconds of you and I talking.

[00:21:22] I am just me.

[00:21:24] And brands need to just be very transparent, very open, very honest.

[00:21:30] Consumers are a lot smarter than we give them credit for.

[00:21:33] Right?

[00:21:34] They know we're trying to sell them something.

[00:21:37] With the product, service, experience, they get it.

[00:21:40] I firmly believe if marketers in the world just acknowledged consumers are a lot smarter than we give them credit for, we think they are, and speak with them instead of to them.

[00:21:52] That little tweak?

[00:21:54] Night and day.

[00:21:55] That's awesome.

[00:21:56] Yeah, no, this is great.

[00:21:57] Great stuff.

[00:21:58] Always love having these conversations with you, Steve.

[00:22:01] And everybody, thanks for tuning in to another episode with us.

[00:22:04] I hope that you're walking away from this episode with Steve Olenski.

[00:22:11] Just refreshed and a new approach and applying something that's going to change your business, your relationship with your customers and prospective customers for the better.

[00:22:21] So check out the show notes.

[00:22:22] You'll find ways to get in touch with Steve via LinkedIn, as well as ways to get in touch with the folks at Stan Ventures.

[00:22:30] Thank you all for tuning in.

[00:22:31] And Steve, really appreciate you making the time for this.

[00:22:35] Pleasure is all mine.

[00:22:36] Take care, brother.