The Future-Proof Marketing Function Scorecard
Prioritize five functions that preserve differentiation in an AI-heavy market
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 89%
Evaluate a marketing strategy across five functions: brand, content, AI-enabled growth operations, events, and community. Brand and content create recognizable differentiation when automated outputs make products and communications look increasingly similar. AI operations connect applications and data to scale useful customer experiences. Events and community provide human connection that becomes scarcer as agents manage more online interactions. Leaders score current strength, strategic importance, evidence of customer demand, and capability gaps in each area, then direct investment toward the most consequential weakness. The scorecard is directional rather than universal: product category, audience, economics, and timing still matter. Its value comes from forcing an explicit portfolio discussion instead of allowing legacy channel structures to determine future budgets by default.
Origin
Extracted from Marketing Against The Grain as the hosts named the functions they expect to become more important over the next five years.
Core principles
- 01Brand protects differentiation
- 02Content expresses expertise and personality
- 03AI operations create scalable customer experiences
- 04Events restore scarce human connection
- 05Community compounds relationships beyond automated channels
How to run it
- 1
Score Brand
Rate how clearly the market recognizes the company's identity, promise, and differences. Support the score with customer evidence rather than internal opinion.
Pro tip Ask customers to describe the brand without using company-provided language.
Watch out Awareness without meaningful differentiation is not a strong brand score.
- 2
Score Content
Evaluate whether content provides original expertise, stories, emotion, or utility. Distinguish true domain expertise from high-volume commodity production.
Pro tip Review what customers save, share, quote, or use in decisions.
Watch out Publishing frequency can conceal weak substance.
- 3
Score AI Operations
Assess the team's ability to connect approved data and applications into monitored customer workflows. Include technical ownership, governance, and measurement.
Pro tip Score deployed outcomes more heavily than demonstrations or tool subscriptions.
Watch out Automation without quality and compliance controls is a liability, not maturity.
- 4
Score Events
Measure the strength of in-person experiences and their ability to build trust, learning, and relationships. Include both owned and partner events.
Pro tip Track relationship depth and downstream behavior, not attendance alone.
Watch out Do not fund events solely because offline interaction is fashionable.
- 5
Score Community
Evaluate repeated member-to-member interaction, trust, contribution, and shared identity. Separate an active community from a passive audience list.
Pro tip Look for useful interactions that occur without staff initiating them.
Watch out A large membership count does not prove community health.
- 6
Reallocate and Review
Invest in the gaps that matter most for the company's customers and positioning. Repeat the scorecard as AI adoption and channel behavior evolve.
Pro tip Pair every investment with a leading indicator and a business outcome.
Watch out Do not apply the five functions with equal weight regardless of business context.
In the wild
A leadership team scores itself highly on automated acquisition but poorly on brand distinction, customer community, and live education. It preserves its AI operations investment while shifting incremental budget toward original expert content, small customer events, and a practitioner community. Each initiative receives defined engagement and pipeline measures.
→ The company balances scalable automation with stronger human trust and market differentiation.
Common mistakes
Giving Every Function Equal Weight
The five functions are priorities to assess, not a universal budget formula. Weight them according to customers, category, and strategic position.
Treating Audience as Community
Followers and subscribers do not automatically form relationships with one another. Measure participation, contribution, and recurring interaction.
Measuring Activity Instead of Advantage
More content, events, or automations do not guarantee stronger marketing. Connect each function to differentiation, customer value, and business outcomes.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for leadership teams planning capabilities and budgets over a three- to five-year horizon.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal as a replacement for company-specific customer research, channel economics, or near-term revenue planning.
From the transcript
“I think brand content. You can call it ops, growth ops, automators,”
“I think events is gonna get way more important.”
“So content brand, growth ops, events, community. I think that is like a good five things that if you nail those things your marketing strategy…”
From the episode
5 A.I. Marketing Skills You Must Learn In 2023 (#136)