The traditional marketing funnel is outdated. Today’s consumers are constantly moving across streaming, scrolling, searching, and shopping. To capture this complexity, marketers need to adopt a new framework: influence maps.

Influence maps help you visualize the degree of influence your brand can have at various online and offline touch points. By understanding these pathways, you can connect with potential customers in more dynamic and multidimensional ways.

6-steps to Put Influence Maps to Work

  1. Identify Top Influence Pathways: Research customer behavior data (on-site actions, social engagement, industry trends) to understand how customers are influenced. Look for patterns in how they stream, scroll, search, and shop.
  2. Create Influence Maps: Chart how customers engage with your brand through different channels. Focus on their 4S behaviors and create maps to visualize their interactions with your offerings.
  3. Redesign Marketing Plans: Develop tailored strategies for each customer journey, considering messaging, content, budget, and partnerships. Use AI to adapt creative elements, like YouTube ads, to appeal to customers regardless of their journey phase.
  4. Assess AI Adoption: Understand your organization’s current AI capabilities. Companies that integrate AI into their workflows report significantly higher revenue growth.
  5. Identify Where AI Can Support You: Determine where AI can increase volume and velocity. Focus on areas like insights and measurement (to process data and optimize decisions) and media planning/execution (to achieve the right ad, person, place, and time). Leverage AI-powered tools like Demand Gen and Performance Max.
  6. Prioritize Influence Pathways to Pilot AI: Start with pathways and touchpoints that can immediately benefit from AI. Use AI to direct marketing spend to the most effective touch points and customize messaging for key pathways.

Examples of AI in Action:

  • Travel Company: Analyze travel blogs and generate video ad scripts for YouTube destination videos to improve click-through rates.
  • Retailer: Use generative AI to create ad creatives that tag creators and specific products on social media, ensuring consistent messaging across platforms to increase conversion rates.

By following these steps, you can better understand customer interactions, identify opportunities for change, and use AI to drive impactful marketing results.