By skyforbes I need advice, serious one, from someone who has struggled/is struggling with the same thing, because I don´t think I'm the only one.
Brief summary: I, marketing/copywriter/PR, 12 years of experience. In my current company, I'm in the marketing department (as the only one :-D). . My biggest current specialization is social media (our business pages & employee advocacy), writing articles for the web & newsletters.
I'm a big fan of AI, I create my own plugins, prompt engineering, etc., just the whole package.
My boss has been turning to AI more and more over the last year – that wouldn't be a bad thing. But…
– he started paying for external consultations from time to time -> complete uselessness, because he can literally ask ME (we are talking about AI consultations like how to use Chatgpt, Copilot, etc. in "normal" way)
– he started to mass-forward his conversations with AI from time to time as "very interesting ideas" (nobody cares because it's irrelevant, or if anything, my colleagues/I have already dealt with these things with AI. Everybody is laughing at him behind his back.
The situation I am facing now:
Last night my boss sent me an email, I will copy part of it here:
…I know that we have been discussing some important things together recently that are not yet resolved and you are waiting for my answer.
However, I talked to AI a little and there would certainly be room to improve marketing.
I am sending the conversation copied to MS Word as an attachment.
The most interesting and most important it seems to me:
- generally on average 60-70% of requests come from organic search, in our case the majority comes from PPC
- changes in search are noticeable – we have to adapt to this
- in addition to the website (SEO) and PPC, we could perhaps also use social media
- there are specific recommendations for different focus on companies and private individuals
- there are specific recommendations for focusing on (X) as our clients
- there are specific recommendations for promoting (X) services
Please study it all and possibly contribute to it, we will discuss it in person.
What happened: This was the last nail in the coffin :-D. Literally all of these are things I've been telling him over and over again since I joined the company a year ago.
Changes in SEO and search? – I have been telling him for the last half a year or so, but he is not interested.
Advertising on social media? – no, waste money.
Focusing on target groups – what? I do this all the time, I am engaged in segmentation, he knows about it, we even discuss it with the sales department. And of course, I report to him if I create a new target group, e.g. for mailing/newsletters.
Promotion for (X) services – I specifically prepared a comprehensive PR campaign for him two months ago FOR WHICH HE ASKED ME TO with a budget, time (6 months), selected media, etc. -> he said no, that it was expensive (objectively it wasn't), and unnecessary.
Regarding his AI conversation
His communication style:
- How have the keywords changed when searching for x? … Thanks, now look at the German market.
- What should we add/highlight on our website to support the sale of services
– this is enough to give you an idea. In short, general, meaningless things that "everyone" of course knows after several seconds of googlin, the numbers and other "proofs" applies generaly. He doesn´t care that he never specifies stuff like we are B2B, what our exact pain points are, where we are present, how known we are at the market etc.
I keep telling him not to do this, that it's useless, because LLM doesn't know our company, the numbers are very different – e.g. average CTR in newsletters are 3-5% -> in our industry and our company field it´s 1-2%. But nooo, AI told him different bigger number so he will believe it. – and if he wants to use AI for such things, ASK ME, because I created and am constantly updating a tailored plugin for our agency, so it knows exactly who we are, what our turnover is, what our specific target groups are, what´s our processes etc. But no. Total ignorance. He'd rather pay for "general AI training".
I'm afraid (and angry) that when we'll have that meeting where I'll tell him my findings (contribute per his words) to the things he wrote – the conversation with AI is 60!!! pages long, of which 85% stuff I keep telling him OVER AND OVER AGAIN – he's able to conclude from all of it that AI helped him, not me.
Please, has anyone encountered something similar to this? How did you deal with it? Of course, I can't tell my boss to fu*k off, but apparently, me repeating to him that he should ask/believe me, or use my plugin, or when I tell him some suggestions, obviously doesn't work. I'm not talking about him "not appreciating" me, he always praises me. But he doesn't follow what I say.