Convincing Your Marketing Team to Embrace AI
A strategic guide for SaaS CEOs, CMOs, CFOs, and CROs to drive AI adoption and transform marketing operations
The big challenge SaaS CEOs, CFOs, CROs, and CMOs are facing right now is getting their teams to fully adopt AI into their marketing strategies and tactics by all team members. Here is a practical guide on how to approach the integration and get buy in from everyone. (This obviously doesn’t apply to AI companies, like OpenAI, n8n, Cartesia, etc.)
1. Start with the Why
Begin by articulating the clear business benefits of using AI in marketing. Focus on efficiency gains, data-driven decision making, and competitive advantage. Show real-world examples of companies successfully leveraging AI in their marketing strategies.
HubSpot uses AI-powered tools like Content Assistant for crafting personalized marketing emails, social posts, and blog ideas, as well as ChatSpot for conversational CRM interactions
Partner Stack uses AI tool Keyplay to build customized target account lists for their marketing and sales teams
Marathon Health employed AI to identify in-market accounts within their vast target market of small and medium-sized businesses, resulting in $66 million in net-new pipeline.
Lyzr AI increased organic traffic by 150% in 3 months between August and October 2024 using the AI tool, Surfer SEO
2. Address Concerns Head-On
Acknowledge and proactively address common fears about AI replacing jobs.
Emphasize how AI augments human creativity and enables the team to focus on strategic, high-value work rather than repetitive tasks.
3. Present a Clear Implementation Plan
Outline a phased approach to AI adoption, starting with small, manageable projects that can demonstrate quick wins. This builds confidence and momentum while allowing the team to learn and adapt gradually.
You can try/show them the ICP/positioning prompt I did last week as an example.
Start with content or seo AI tools, and then gradually move into workflow tools. When moving into workflow tools, be sure they understand Zapier — the connective tissue for AI workflows.
Writer.com or Jasper.AI - for content creation, idea generator
ChatGPT - synthesizes complex ideas and data
Perplexity - real-time AI search with cited sources
Claude.ai - conversational chat bot
Surfer SEO - AI SEO, AI (
bullshit) copy detector, AI Humanizer, AI outline creatorClearscope – NLP (natural language processing) -driven keyword and content optimization
Ink for SEO - keyword research and clustering tool to help build content clusters on your site (also has an AI writer)
HubSpot’s AI Search Grader (free)
RankIQ - helps write blogs posts that land on Google’s page 1
Gemini - helps with generating images for blogs or newsletters, brainstorming)
Scrunch - for brand monitoring, brand insights
Zapier, Make, n8n.io - to create sales and marketing workflows (See ⬇️ examples)
4. Invest in Training and Support
Demonstrate your commitment to the team's success by providing comprehensive training and resources. This shows you're investing in their growth and development, not just in technology. When companies invest in their employees growth and development it results in greater productivity, efficiency, and innovation.
Udemy course - complete guide on how to build your own ChatGPT
AI Product Management Maven certification with OpenAI's PM
Piloting AI course and Scaling AI course by the Marketing AI Institute
AI training for marketing teams by Nicole Leffer
AI workshops tailored for your team with Growthpath.net by Liza Adams
5. Measure and Celebrate Success
Establish clear metrics for success and regularly share progress with the team. Celebrate achievements and improvements, no matter how small, to maintain motivation and demonstrate the positive impact of AI adoption. You can even gamify it and give out a small award to drive adoption. Everyone loves a trophy. 🏆
💡 Have the team create a Zap using Zapier to send new leads from your CRM to Slack. Reward the team with $ gift card to Starbucks or Amazon.
Crowd source ideas from the team on how to best measure success so they have buy-in from the start.
At one company I used to give out a “Rock Star” award to whoever went above and beyond that month. They received a card in the shape of a guitar with a handwritten note from me and were able to choose one item from a buffet of swag/gift cards they wanted. 💡
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