Page 3 - KZN Business Sense 12.4 - Terry Flack

HOW AI SHIFTS MARKETING

FROM A COST CENTRE TO A

PROFIT CENTRE

Terry Flack, Business Success Leader, single question: does this move a
Cannect Digital prospect closer to a signature? If
the honest answer is no, switch it
waZulu-Natal business off. Faster first response, clearer
has entered a season where next steps, intelligent routing
Kmarketing can no longer be and 24/7 engagement do not just
judged by how busy it looks. It must lift conversion – they compress
be judged by how much revenue the cash-collection cycle, which
it helps create. In a province that is the metric your CFO actually
contributes about 16% of South cares about.
Africa’s GDP and is anchored by CMOs And CFOs Must Be Best
Durban and Richards Bay – which Friends
together handle almost 60% of
the country’s cargo tonnage – This is the cultural shift.
speed, movement and commercial McKinsey’s 2024 report, The
efficiency are the economy. Peter CMO’s Comeback, found that
Drucker’s line lands hard today, companies with strong CFO–
“Marketing and innovation CMO alignment unlock 20 to
produce results; all the rest are 40% more financial growth, and
costs.” In 2026, the challenge is not Analytic Partners’ ROI Genome
whether marketing can be creative. data attributes roughly 40%
It is whether it can convert. of annual business growth to
marketing. Yet only 35% of CMOs
Marketers have been rewarded track revenue as a top metric,
for producing impressions, views versus 70% of CEOs. Deloitte’s
and likes while the CFOs writing Terry Flack, Business Success Leader, Cannect Digital 2025 CMO Survey confirms it:
the cheques wonder why those proving marketing’s value is still
metrics never translate into rand. operational issue. It is a silent humans do best: discovery, training and headcount are the top challenge for CMOs.
South Africa already has the digital profit killer. negotiation and closing. included. For a KZN business, that
audience: DataReportal’s Digital is simply non-viable. Marketing as a cost centre
2025 report counts 50.8 million “Views, likes and impressions What This Looks Like On The belongs in the same museum as
internet users, 26.7 million social may tell you that someone noticed Ground In KZN At our performance marketing the fax machine. When the CMO
media identities and 15 million you, but they do not tell you For KZN businesses, this is agency, Cannect Digital, we have walks into the monthly finance
LinkedIn members. Visibility is no whether anyone bought.” intensely practical. A Durban been replacing large chunks of that review with a live dashboard
longer the problem. Conversion is. From TOFU Likes To BOFU logistics business can capture stack with AI agents. In Claude’s of pipeline generated, cost per
environment – Claude Code for
qualified lead, speed-to-first-
The Leaky Funnel Is Revenue a request for quotation (RFQ), developers and Cowork for non- response and closed-won revenue
score the lead, route it and send
Haemorrhaging Your Budget The top of the funnel is cheap; an immediate, relevant response technical operators – you can spin – all powered by agents that cost
Let us start with the blood on the the bottom is where the profit before a competitor has even up a plugin that watches a Gmail less than a junior salary – the
inbox, qualifies inbound enquiries
floor. MarketingSherpa reports lives. Moving prospects from opened their inbox. A Midlands against your ideal customer profile, conversation changes. Budget
that roughly 79% of marketing awareness to purchase used to hospitality brand can turn drafts a first response in your own stops being defended; it starts
leads never convert to sales, require an army of SDRs, a CRM abandoned booking intent into tone of voice, books a meeting, being invested.
primarily because they are never priesthood and a content factory. confirmed reservations with updates the customer relationship “The businesses that will win
properly nurtured. The Harvard Today it requires an agentic timed nudges and personalised management (CRM) and pings will be the ones that use AI not to
Business Review “Lead Response ecosystem – autonomous and offers. An Umhlanga advisory Slack or Teams the moment a hot create more noise, but to create
Management” study found that semi-autonomous AI agents that firm can qualify enquiries, book lead needs human eyes. The real more movement and growth
firms contacting a lead within qualify, nurture, book, quote and consultations and keep prospects promise of AI in marketing is not momentum.”
five minutes are up to 100 times hand over to a human only at the warm automatically until a more content. It is more movement
more likely to qualify it than those moment of maximum leverage. decision-maker is ready to engage. through the funnel. The KZN Bottom Line
who wait 30 minutes. Most South The numbers are no longer The future belongs to businesses
African SMEs respond in hours, marginal. Zigment’s 2026 analysis KZN already offers a local A three-person marketing team that build faster paths to purchase.
days, or not at all. found that 62% of leaders expect proof point. KZN Top Business we recently worked with retired For KZN companies, that means
100%+ ROI from agentic AI, reports that its Nexus platform four Software as a Service(SaaS)
Every unanswered website with organisations projecting an connects visibility, leads, data and subscriptions and replaced them fewer leaks, fewer delays, fewer
form, every WhatsApp that sits average return of 171%. Separate partnerships in one ecosystem with a single Cowork plugin that disconnected tools and far more
untouched, every quote request 2026 benchmarks from Thunderbit – and cites a local retailer that handles lead routing, proposal commercial accountability. No
that receives a reply tomorrow and SQ Magazine show marketing increased sales by 20% in six drafting and weekly reporting. sales. No business. The businesses
instead of now is budget leaking automation delivering $5.44 months without extra ad spend. Payback: 11 days. that win will use AI not to create
out of the business. Gartner’s 2025 back for every $1 spent – a 544% The win is a tighter commercial more noise, but to create more
CMO Spend Survey shows martech ROI – and automated nurturing system that turns attention into For another client, we developed movement: faster response, better
(your marketing tech stack, producing 77% higher conversion measurable business outcomes. an App for 10% of traditional App qualification, clearer follow-up and
comprising all those platforms and rates. These are the difference development costs and delivered stronger conversion. And more
software solutions you use for your between survival and scale. AI Is Replacing The Martech it not in months, but weeks. That money in the bank.
marketing) has slumped to 22% of Stack changes the game for business Marketing must be measured in
the marketing budget, with only The point is not to replace Here is where it gets practical where the implementation of Rands, not reach, where the CMO
49% of those tools actively used. your team. It is to make sure for the CFO. Flaiz’s 2026 martech bespoke Apps across a company and CFO finally share the same
We spend millions on platforms no serious lead dies waiting pricing analysis shows a typical ensures better engagement, more scoreboard. Meaningful, efficient,
we do not open, chasing leads we for a human being to catch up. mid-market stack – Salesforce fluid process flows and big data profitable growth. 
do not answer. That is the leak. Autonomous actions handle Sales Cloud, HubSpot or Marketo, feedback. At the push of a button.
In a province where relationships instant acknowledgements, a customer data platform (CDP), One Driving Goal – Sales
matter and service industries routing, lead scoring and follow- an analytics suite and 10 to 15 M: +27 (0)84 555 0005
dominate everything from logistics up triggers. Semi-autonomous point solutions – carrying a true Simplification is the strategy. T: 086 111 2939 (SA Sharecall Only)
to tourism to professional services, actions draft replies, nurtures annual cost of US$2 million to Every workflow, agent and E: Terry@cannectdigital.com
slow follow-up is not a small and proposals. Humans do what US$8 million once integration, dashboard should answer a W: www.cannectdigital.com

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