Marketer Spotlight: Alex Stonehouse

What is your biggest marketing challenge right now?

My obsession at the moment is finding the perfect balance between the art and science of marketing to find the sweet spot that drives the best results for brands. In the era of performance marketing we got so focused on metrics that we sometimes took it a bit too far, and the data began to hinder our ability to make decisive decisions for the right reasons.

I am not down on analyzing key metrics. It’s still essential, but I liken it to the changes that have happened in baseball with sabermetrics and advanced analytics. When Billy Bean was taking a new approach to baseball during the Money Ball era it was an incredible advantage to have a different analytical approach, but as other teams caught up, the same tactics weren’t as valuable because everyone started doing it. 

The same is true in marketing and advertising, to a large extent, and the pendulum is swinging back to valuing the creativity and originality that connects and resonates with audiences above everything.

How has SUM made you a better marketer?

As a marketing generalist with T-shaped expertise, I have experience in a wide variety of speciality areas, but my knowledge is not always as deep as I’d like it to be in the areas I work in less often.  With hundreds of templates, courses, experts, and other resources, SUM helps me to be a COMPLETE marketer, and knocks down all of the silos that can hold us back if we are not careful.

Also, there is nothing better than learning from other people in real time. There is tremendous value to having access to fellow marketers outside of your organization so you can have discussions, ask questions, and get feedback without fear of judgement that you may be worried about inside your organization. I honestly can’t put a price tag on the amount of knowledge I’ve gained from my SUM peers, ranging from topics like AI and modern martech stacks to PR and personal branding.

What were you missing out on before you joined SUM?

Before I joined SUM it took me a lot of personal time and effort to stay up to date on marketing and advertising trends because I was trying to learn from a variety of disconnected sources. The beautiful thing about SUM is it brings together a community of marketers and founders with a breadth of experience and knowledge in specific topic areas, and they are all generous about sharing their opinions and insights. If I have a question, SUM is my go-to source for an answer because there is a good chance that someone in the community who is smarter than me has experienced what I’m going through.

What’s something that you are working on now because you think it will matter in 5 years?

There is no doubt that the evolution and advancement of AI-driven tools is changing the way we work as marketers, but I see this as an opportunity to build our work life around the things we love and minimize the tedium that distracts us from the creative work that makes us unique. There is undoubtedly a world ahead of us where we can utilize AI to accentuate the humanity that will continue to be essential in the business world. Decisions get made and deals get inked based on trust and human relationships, and that is something still worst investing in.