Hello again! Welcome back to Scaling Greatness, a newsletter from Integreon focusing on amplifying business excellence and innovation.
Emily Watkins , Senior Marketing Manager at Integreon , talks with Ross Hunter , Founder of Copylab Ltd , about finding the right balance between AI, automation and authenticity in financial services marketing.
Emily: Ross, there’s huge interest in using AI across content, marketing, even client service. But where do you see the line between smart automation and going too far?
Ross: It comes down to intent and execution. Clients are fine with AI behind the scenes: say, powering a chatbot that helps them get quick answers. But they’re not okay when it’s obvious that content’s been churned out by a bot with no oversight. That erodes trust, fast.
Emily: So, they’re not anti-AI, they’re anti-bad content?
Ross: Exactly. In finance, trust is the product. If something feels overly generic or oddly worded, people tune out. Or worse, they figure out it’s AI generated and start questioning your credibility. They don’t mind that AI plays a role, but they want to know a human made the final call.
Emily: What about personalization? Clients say they want more relevant content, but also that too much personalization can feel invasive.
Ross: Totally. There’s a difference between being helpful and being creepy. If you’re tailoring content based on preferences or past behaviors, great. But if it feels like you’ve been reading their emails or listening to their conversations at the dinner table, that crosses a line. So, personalization has to be done sensitively.
Emily: It’s a tension we feel in marketing. Clients want relevance, firms want efficiency, and we’re stuck in the middle trying to deliver both.
Ross: And that’s where smart martech comes in. Automate the repetitive stuff. Use AI to scale production. But leave the judgment, tone and nuance to humans. It all has to be authentic to the brand and feel human to the reader. That’s the bit that builds relationships.
Emily: So, what do clients expect from their financial services providers when it comes to AI?
Ross: They expect efficiency, yes, but also honesty. Don’t pretend everything is handmade. And I think you do have to make it clear where the value comes from. Some firms might go as far as to state when AI has been involved in their content creation. In the end, AI might get you seen, but human insight is what makes you trusted.
Emily: Well said. Maybe the future is less about man versus machine, and more about smart collaboration between the two.
Ross: That’s for sure. We’re going to be hearing ‘human in the loop’ for a long time to come when it comes to the use of AI in financial services.
⧉ A Moment of Greatness
Highlighting companies who highlight greatness.
Greatness Wins , an athletic wear company founded by Derek Jeter, Chris Riccobono and Misty Copeland, infuses the idea of greatness into the company principles and philosophy. “What separates good from greatness is the ability to stand the test of time.”
We love to find moments of greatness anywhere and everywhere. Let us know where you see greatness or how your company inspires great work.
⧉ The Hidden Engine Powering Successful Marketing Teams
Marketing is all about ideas, and the most dynamic and successful marketing teams pride themselves on their bold and innovative points of view. So, that must mean a strong idea guarantees marketing success, right?
Unfortunately, not.
While few marketing campaigns succeed without a strong core idea, an enormous amount of work must happen “under the hood” to ensure that campaigns are executed to achieve their intended impact. And the most critical of these underpinning elements may be the least glamorous: good old-fashioned research and administrative support.
Let’s start with research. A solid understanding of target markets, product demographics and competitor offerings is the bedrock upon which any great strategy is constructed. In-depth research and analysis helps marketing teams develop and refine sparks of inspiration into practical plans, profile peers and gauge the effectiveness of approaches among various audience segments.
Research can mean the difference between success and failure. You might have a great video ad concept, for example, but if you focus your campaign on the wrong audience, your message might not land. Incorporating marketing research into your regular processes also supports the growth and profitability of the company overall. A report from The Hinge Research Institute found that professional services firms who “conduct frequent research grow up to 70% faster and are almost 50% more profitable than firms that don’t.”
Administrative support is similarly critical. While it might not sound exciting, solid admin is the glue that holds complex marketing operations together. Managing creative assets and prospect lists, communicating with stakeholders and coordinating logistics is no small undertaking, and doing so effectively can make a huge impact in an industry where speed of action is often central.
Some firms have all the capabilities, in-house talent and budget to run their own research and admin activities. But many marketing teams (at both large and small companies), resources are limited, and valuable team members can get bogged down in low-leverage tasks. The Content Marketing Institute’s recent survey of 980 B2B marketing leaders found “lack of resources” as the top challenge for the majority (54%) of content creation teams.
For marketing departments with restricted resources, or firms that want to reduce overhead on non-core tasks, outsourcing research and admin functions can be an excellent way to access high-quality services without going on a hiring spree. External providers who specialize in these fields can help to free up internal teams to work on ideation, strategic development and content creation.
Outsourced research teams, for instance, can provide detailed and unbiased insights at a rapid clip – perhaps more quickly than in-house teams would be able to manage, if unspecialized. Similarly, external administrative staff can help to keep marketing teams stay lean, agile and able to focus on core output, campaign measurement, and making smart adjustments based on data.
