Armed with modern technology at the cost Human touch?

Last night I was thinking about what I have done and doing for last 7 years. A sudden repercussion of neuron and I had my answer which is marketing (which again I am not sure how much is plain vanilla). Then there was another thought came creeping in, that this is not something I started working. Obviously as the time went by, along with corporate environment the marketing eco-system also changed a lot. From someone who saw this from ground zero, I think I have a ‘point of view’ about all these changes / movement / so called modernization (which is negative, to some extent).

But before you make your assumptions please read though. To start with let’s see about the innovation which came into the picture –

New technologies like marketing automation, statistics models (Being quite weak in maths, this segment translates as hebrew to me) changed the whole ball game. For instance, 

How I used to plan the marketing activities? Still remember those funnel planning to connect revenue with approx. number of leads or responses depending upon some numbers (they were easy though I must say than the current marketing models). Do we still follow this? I don't... I do it with the help of more statistical, probability models which seems to predict where we should invest and what to expect. But I don't think marketing is that easy. If you feel otherwise then would like to know with the growing complexity of marketing models did the results grown? Please don't tell me your sales has increased because that's bound to happen because of your existing brand value, increased market, increased budget of other companies etc. You are bound to get more than what you have got last year (Else you are almost out of business in this competition). If you are growing more than market's growth then I would say please don't rest of the topic because you don't need them your models and complexities are paying their price, but leave a comment so that I can learn something. 

What I feel about this whole scenario is, these technologies are taking out human touch. I forgot to understand our clients and started to define them with some attributes (e.g. persona) i.e. revenue, vertical, sector, employee number. And by doing so I might have increased the number of target market, responses, efficiency. But without increasing the conversion ratio, which resulted into nothing but ability to sustain in this market (either growing below market growth rate or running business as no profit organization). Personally I would say my previous work scenario was better because even though I couldn't target 100 people per day but I knew my target market personally. Because I had to understand each of them by their name not only by the attributes. Yes attributes then also played a role but not as main criteria instead it played a secondary subtle one to classify people. Now because of all these technology I missed that human touch to understand to each of my clients separately from each other. And along side I am not able to target them with their specific pain points and connect them personally.

This circumstance is available not only in marketing. For a better understanding lets take  another great example of this technological catastrophe. Think about your resume what it is today? A 2 page document with full of generic jargon's. Every-thing is point based, but actually point-less. We don’t feel like explaining things in details, at least for them who wants to read them anymore.  Lets think why this change happened? It’s because our HR friends (please don’t take anything personal friends because I might need your help too in future..) they search their fit for resume as per the key-words. But that doesn't give a proper selection panel / view? For an example suppose I have some previous experience in java, j2ee product selling and it’s mentioned in one line deep inside of my resume. But still I get java j2ee development job offers because our friends doesn't have enough time to check why I wrote those words.

Not sure if this helped anyone but creating a nuisance into the environment. I still understand that the volume of work is humongous. Adding up personalization into everything is gonna take 100% time than what’s current performance yardstick. And reading up resumes which are 5-6 page long is not gonna reduce the job. Instead I am advocating on the basis of penetration rate. Don’t you think if we are facing this issue it’s time for us to decide what we need, is it quality or quantity. I know many of us are thinking quality in our mind but while executing it, we will choose quantity way for it's thin risk distribution. I think this mindset is restricting our new ideas? Are we that afraid that can’t go beyond technology and place innovation above all?

After reading all these you must be thinking that I am against technology, I hate technology, sophistication, statistics. To all of you who are thinking in this way would humbly say that “no, I am not”. I love technology, automation but will withstand when technology suck out the best part us, 'human touch'. In current market it’s huge getting into this market without the help of technology will be a foolishness. Today’s market is not only driven but depended on technology like mobile, internet. So technology is the way-out and may be only one because traditional mediums are kind of either became or becoming obsolete day by day. But does that mean, there isn't a way to utilize the technology and personalization together? I would say “sure thing, mate” we just have to find the break-even point. Don’t let the automation do what you are supposed to do. Use your gray matter then take help of technology to make the best use of it. I would like to have a personal touch with every one of my clients, because there is no way better than hard-way. Because usage of internet and mobile doesn't change my client or their mindset, then why should I.

Sometime I also think about this if I am working in this way (without personalization), why shouldn't I be replaced by a fully automated marketing system which will automatically find its target audience based upon given criteria, finds out the best marketing campaign previously worked on them change it with relevant data (up to date numbers and stats again) and run the campaigns and then follow up. Am I doing enough to be relevant in this world? Am I using my gray matters (automation's can be the result of gray matter but can’t evolve because it’s not with them) to the best? I would like to use technology as a cart behind horse, but the horse.

This is a personal scribble ground. The opinions expressed here are all personal they do not express any direct or indirect linkage to the organization I am attached to. But I love changes so they might be changing time to time. :o)