Technology is changing the way we work, the way we live and definitely the way we market our goods and services. And given that the marketing function is leading the way in technology spends, there is reason to believe that our jobs will be affected in some way - good or bad depending on what we are doing.
It may be futile to examine individual roles and designations within the current organizational structure given the speed at which the organizational landscape is evolving. It may be better instead to focus our efforts on the skills and tasks that are most likely to be replaced by machine learning and other technological development. And then by extension the roles that contain the least number of the said tasks.
As per most research and discussion the jobs most likely to be automated are the ones that are repetitive and monotonous with a set of predictable criteria and factors that a program can be written for. This would typically include tasks such as the below
1. Basic copywriting : Creation of simple descriptions or customized versions basis provided inputted keywords and foundation content.
2. Editing and Quality checks : Correcting grammar, syntax and even rating content relevance reference previously provided quality parameters like keyword density, word count or reference articles.
3. Content Posting: Posting content and back linking is another area that can be easily automated and continues to get better and smarter every day.
4. Research: Remember the effort that it took to pull out data, insights and graphs from like a hundred different articles and then present it with a great executive summary… again, while the costs are still on the higher side, already being done 100 x faster and better by tools.
5. Reporting: Be it keyword ranks, traffic progress or any other update, popular tools like SEMRush, Ahref and Moz make this look like a piece of cake. And better packaging and graphics to boot!
Even if only 30-40% of your role involves tasks such as these, technology will reduce the overall number of positions in the market by increasing efficiencies. However it is important to remember that people will be needed to understand and mine these insights from tools and that is a big opportunity.
Lastly , the impact of the human element in any marketing campaign cannot be underrated - It takes patience and experience to cut through reams of data and arrive at the best strategy in a given set of circumstances that are usually too fluid to be fed into an algorithm. It also requires human intervention when things to wrong… as they almost always do. In case you are interest in reading more about the impact of technology on jobs, you may want to read Skills You Need If You Want To Keep Your Marketing Job In 2022 .
Mike Smith has a hand-on experience in content marketing and that’s the reason why his blogs on the subject are educative and easy to understand. Mike has been a creative writer and is focused on the world of content marketing for many years now.