After a successful stint at Monstarlab, and a number of other tech consultancys, following a career shift from the cultural to the tech sector, you've embarked on a new journey with KLW Marketing. What inspired you to start your own marketing consultancy, and how has your diverse background influenced your approach to marketing in the tech industry?
I think what inspired me was quite a lot of people fall into being self-employed or a business owner. Sometimes it's for positive reasons, but quite a lot of the time your hand is forced. The experience design agency I was working for went into liquidation and staff were let go at the end of May 2023. Going through that made me stop and reflect about what I really wanted. The thing that I knew for certain is that I didn't want to go back into full-time employment!
In a recent article, you noted the significance of AI in marketing. How has this changed your strategy?
With my background in the cultural sector, I've had exposure to how people have been innovating for thousands of years. The people who are early adopters of new technologies tend to get ahead, AI is no exception. I liken AI to an intern, assisting but not replacing my thinking—it offers a second opinion and helps to get rid of rubbish ideas.
In terms of change, my view is that it is there to enhance human creativity rather than fully replace us. There's a lot of scaremongering around how it's going to take human jobs, I think we're a long way from that. It's not going to be sentient anytime soon. People need to chill out and not watch loads of Terminator movies!
The real challenge is keeping up with it all. Every week there's something new.
What practical uses do you find most advantageous?
An example would be that I may be short on time and only have an hour to write a blog. By providing AI with the right prompts and the structure of a blog post, it can draft the post, allowing me to edit and publish faster.
Creating 10 social posts now takes half the time. For image generation, it's not the best with people or words. But if you want an image that doesn't look like stock imagery, it can produce some stunning results.
You're delivering a workshop on generative AI in Marketing on campus. What key concepts and tools do you intend to introduce to students, and how do you plan to address the ethical considerations surrounding AI in marketing?
I'm going to give them a brief overview of how AI can help you with your marketing tasks, especially when it comes to building your personal brand or using social media and share the top 5 things I’ve discovered from using AI in marketing. Students can then use it on platforms like LinkedIn or other social channels they use so they can experience putting content out there.
I'll be covering the importance of fully editing your work and using AI responsibly.
I'd never get AI to generate some content and then post it without checking it, irrespective of what it is. The technology has its limitations. It can produce outputs with gender biases or content considered offensive. It doesn't always understand those subtle nuances, so it’s important to apply that human conditioning to it.
How do you plan to get students excited about AI in marketing, and what skills do you believe they should focus on developing to thrive in a tech-driven marketing landscape?
When creating with AI, it won't be perfect. But what you do get out of it, you could arguably put it out there. But there's a big difference in the quality. I can spot AI-generated content a mile off if it hasn't been edited. What I want is to demonstrate the speed at which you can get things done. I’m going to show them a nifty little tool in Canva which is a bulk content creator feature. It means that say you have a spreadsheet with ten points in it, it can create 10 social posts, just like that. If you’re a marketer that is doing a ten-part content series, you can design your socials so quickly. For me that has been a game changer.
AI is exciting in itself. It's all about demystifying it—being practical and clear, especially for marketers to avoid getting lost in it. There are five clear actions marketers can take immediately that will positively change their workflow. As AI is constantly evolving, it's tough to predict its state in six months, but it's about keeping pace with the changes. I follow a couple of thought leaders who live and breathe AI—they're the ones who share the important bits that can keep your knowledge up to date.
Could you recommend any specific people that you follow that helped you to get a better understanding of AI tools?
Yeah, there's someone local called Lucy Batley, from Traction Industries, she’s brilliant.
I know Lucy. She spoke about AI and her journey at a networking social with Newcastle University’s START UP in November
I’ve got a lot of time for Lucy, she’s so knowledgeable and she just says it how it is; I think that’s really healthy. There’s Molly Mahoney who is based in North America. I’ve heard her speak and she’s a marketer by trade who gives me the information that I want. You just need to think about which parts of AI are the best for your business and work life.
How important is personal branding for acquiring clients, and does it outweigh past professional relationships?
I just did a training session for Newcastle alumni on this and it was all about personal branding, especially on LinkedIn.
When I look at my pipeline and all the people who have done business with me, my reputation has won me that work, whether it's been people who I’ve formed relationships with through networking events or working together in the past. Other times we’ve met through LinkedIn.
My personal brand, my reputation is absolutely everything and I wouldn’t have a business without it. The only regret is that I had not started building that earlier. I’ve only really focused on it probably in the past five years. I’m not always the biggest fan of social media, it can be toxic, but what I’ve got back from it professionally is amazing. My side hustle is the Women in Tech North East community and that is all online.
Could you tell me about Women in Tech North East?
Women in Tech North East was founded in April 2022 by a group of women who all worked in tech. The majority of us were career changers. When I came into the world of tech, I looked for this community and I couldn’t find it. When someone was trying to set it up, I was like “Oh, I’ll help you!”. We’re now almost two years down the line and we have an online community of over 1000 individuals, mainly women but also non-binary people who may feel most comfortable within a female environment.
We run events every quarter and we have an open LinkedIn group. Everyone from students to career changers to the CEOs of big companies in the North East are members. We do panel events, fireside chats, we network and it’s an incredible community. It’s a real mix. I’d recommend people check it out!
Based on your experiences, how do you see AI shaping marketing in the next five years, and how should prospective marketing professionals prepare?
Short answer- Who knows! But if you don't keep up to date, you will get left behind. AI is not going away. Since Chat GPT's launch 18 months ago, it's absolutely skyrocketed.
I would say to any marketers you need to find somewhere that you can get up to date information that isn’t going to overwhelm you. Whether that’s an individual thought leader or an AI newsletter, you can’t bury your head in the sand.
I stand by what I said earlier that it’s there to enhance human creativity and not to replace people. If companies decide to sack all their copywriters and replace them with AI bots, they’re soon going to lose business. You lose that authentic tone of voice. In marketing, there will always be a need for people to add that unique human spark to it.
See here to find all the great events happening during the week - there are limited spaces available for each session, so make sure you book your place in advance. Be sure to check out Kathryn's workshop on February 29th, 12:00 PM - 13:30 PM - sign up here!