AI—guided by humans—revolutionizes customer-centric marketing strategies, making customers feel like one in a million instead of one of many.

At a time when AI dominates headlines, our CMO Keri McGhee has a human-centered take on marketing technology. In a recent conversation on the Marketing Trends podcast, McGhee shared how successful marketing teams are using AI, how trust creates high-performing teams, and how the customer experience is at the center of everything in marketing.

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Customer first, technology second

For McGhee, the secret to successful marketing isn't just about having the latest tech—it's about deeply understanding your customer. This insight came from her early days at Zillow, where she witnessed the company grow from 380 to 8,500 employees.

"The best advice I got was if you put the customer first, if at the core you understand what your customer cares about, what motivates them, what they make decisions based on—you typically come out on the right side," McGhee explains.

Customer-centric marketing brings together data and storytelling to clearly communicate the vision and value to the customer. Delivering great stories allows anyone who encounters your brand at any point in the customer journey to know what you do, and more importantly, why they should care.

This customer-first mindset has shaped her approach to marketing automation. While many companies rush to implement AI, McGhee emphasizes the importance of getting the foundations right: "If you want to really leverage AI, you've got to have all of your data and your brand voice in a really good place. Otherwise, when you go to use all that data at scale, you're not going to deliver that really custom personalized experience."

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Key takeaways for customer-centric marketing:

Start with understanding your customer's motivations and decision-making process
Build a strong foundation of clean, organized data before implementing AI
Ensure your brand voice is well-defined and consistent
Let customer needs drive technology decisions, not the other way around

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Recreating the personal touch—at scale

Remember that helpful store associate who went above and beyond to find exactly what you needed? That's the experience McGhee is working to recreate through digital channels. One of the most striking aspects of McGhee's perspective is her emphasis on maintaining humanity in AI-powered marketing.

"People want to recreate that very personal experience, like when you go to a store and you're working with a salesperson," she says. "You have that dialogue with someone who goes off and finds it in the size and color that you need... it's very personal, it's all about you."

The goal? Using technology to make each customer feel special—whether they're shopping at Hot Topic or Wendy's. "When you get it right," McGhee notes, "the consumer doesn't feel like they're being talked to as one of many. They feel like one in a million."

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Tips for personalizing customer experience:

Focus on recreating genuine human interactions through digital channels
Use AI to enhance personal connections, not replace them
Ensure personalization feels natural and contextual
Test and refine your messaging to maintain authenticity at scale

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Breaking down the B2B/B2C divide

The lines between B2B and B2C marketing are increasingly blurred. That’s because, ultimately, all marketers are trying to create human connections.

"People still make decisions based yes on data, but they also make it based on relationships and emotion, trust and intuition," she explains. "We're humans—we want to feel connected, we want to have trust, and we want to believe that whoever we're working with has our best interest at heart."

The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing. There’s a relationship between the brand and customer. More importantly, that relationship is built on trust and authenticity. These relationships determine your brand’s staying power.

Back during the pandemic, a lot of organizations were looking for quick revenue wins. They took budget from brand awareness plays to fund these wins. Then 12 to 18 months later, they would see a decline in organic traffic and site visits, leading to longer sales cycles as customers didn’t have a relationship with the brand. There has to be a balance between short-term wins and creating campaigns that support the longer-term vision of the brand.

What marketers have learned is that above all else, people want to feel a connection with your brand.

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Strategies for creating marketing that resonates:

Focus on building emotional connections and trust
Remember that all decisions—even business ones—have an emotional component
Create content that resonates on both a professional and personal level
Maintain authentic relationships across all customer touchpoints

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Building teams that dare to innovate

When it comes to leading marketing teams in this rapidly evolving landscape, McGhee believes in creating an environment where people feel safe to take risks and occasionally fail.

"If we come to a monthly business review and nobody has anything to share where we failed, we learned, we pivoted—well then we are being way too conservative on how we're placing our bets," she says.

This philosophy has helped her build teams that aren't afraid to push boundaries. "You have to create that safety to fail," McGhee emphasizes. "That is the hardest thing when you're in a really high-growth business, but it's essential for innovation."

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Leadership lessons for marketing teams:

Create psychological safety for team members to take risks
Encourage learning from failures and sharing those lessons
Give teams clarity on priorities and expectations and put the right people in the right roles
Support creative thinking and bold ideas
Make space for innovation within day-to-day operations

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Looking ahead: the future of marketing

As marketing continues to evolve, McGhee remains excited about the possibilities ahead—particularly in personalization and AI. But she's quick to remind marketers not to lose sight of what matters most.

"Having a really bold point of view on something and always acting on behalf of your customer... being the voice of the customer is something that marketers are uniquely positioned to add value around," she says.

Her final piece of advice for marketing leaders? Don't get so caught up in ‌technology that you forget about the humans on the other end. After all, in McGhee's view, the future of marketing isn't just about better algorithms—it's about creating more meaningful connections with customers, one personalized experience at a time.

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Future-ready marketing tips: