Every marketing leader we talk to feels the pressure. The C-suite wants more leads, more revenue, and more proof of ROI. But budgets are tight, and your team is already stretched thin. How can you possibly do more with less?
I recently sat down with Amy Martin, Chief Marketing Officer of TRG, for our "Real Talk With Marketing Leaders" series, and she shared a statistic that stopped me in my tracks: her two-person content team produces 15 to 20 pieces of content a week for two global brands.
And they haven't hit a capacity issue.
This doesn’t mean they are working 80-hour weeks. It's about a fundamental shift in marketing leadership and team structure, powered by generative AI and a crystal-clear understanding of what truly drives their business.
This article provides a breakdown of Amy's playbook – the practical, actionable strategies you can adapt for your own team.
The secret to this incredible output isn't just one tool or technology. It's an entire "content engine" built on a foundation of generative AI. Amy's team has moved beyond simply using AI for first drafts. They've operationalized it.
Their system includes:
Instead of chasing down SMEs for every blog post or webinar idea, the content team has front-loaded that work. They now have an internal "expert" on-demand, ready to generate ideas and outlines that are already aligned with the company's core knowledge.
As more companies adopt the same AI tools, a new risk emerges: a "sea of nothingness" where all brands start to look and sound the same.
How do you stand out?
Amy argues the answer is the one thing AI can't replicate: human intuition and a genuine connection to the customer. It’s the team member who has the courage and insight to say, "this word bothers me, and I think it will bother our customers." It’s the nuance you pick up from sitting in on a sales call that gets fed back into the AI engine to make it smarter.
With AI handling much of the heavy lifting, the role of the marketing leader has to evolve. Amy estimates she now spends about 30% of her week purely on training and enabling her team.
Her focus is on:
This active, hands-on coaching is the antidote to complacency. It prevents teams from getting out of touch with the market, ensuring they are always leveraging the best and most current techniques.
Here’s the insight that will resonate with every marketing leader who has struggled to justify their budget. When asked about attribution, Amy calls it the "biggest kind of joke right now."
She knows attribution is getting harder, not easier. So, she threw out the complex models and replaced them with one simple, powerful philosophy:
If sales meets its stretch goals, marketing has done its job.
The logic is undeniable. The sales team has aggressive targets they could never hit without marketing's constant "air cover," providing visibility, opening doors, reinforcing value propositions, and delivering competitive intelligence.
She backs this up by tying her own compensation directly to it.
The ultimate metric of marketing success is revenue. By aligning marketing's goals directly with sales outcomes, you eliminate the friction of attribution debates and focus everyone on the one number that matters.
So, what kind of person thrives in this new era of marketing? Amy doesn't look for quiet order-takers. She looks for people who are "annoyingly curious" and, more importantly, "amicably combative."
She believes that if her team isn't arguing and challenging each other (and her), they are being lazy. Healthy, respectful debate is what sparks innovation. It’s the friction between brand, creative, and ops that produces the best work.
The lessons I learned from Amy provide a clear roadmap for the future of marketing leadership. By leveraging AI as a true team multiplier, you free up your people to do what they do best: think critically, connect with customers, and challenge the status quo.
This approach allows you to grow your audience and convert leads to customers more effectively than ever before, all while running a lean, efficient, and highly motivated team.
Feeling inspired but not sure where to start with building your own digital marketing engine? Our team at Whittington Consulting specializes in transforming our clients’ online presence into a sales engine, connecting you with ideal prospects for more, better sales conversations. If you'd like more information or a conversation, please fill in the form below.