Human-First AI Marketing Podcast by Avenue9

Mike Montague
  • 5.0 (3)
  • Marketing
  • Weekly

Turn your expertise into content, conversations, and clients with Human-First AI Marketing. Learn how and where to leverage AI without burning bridges, burning cash, or burning out your team.For founders and marketing leaders at expert-led B2B firms, Mike Montague, founder of Avenue9, hosts weekly conversations with AI and marketing experts and other founders to learn how they use AI in marketing.You'll hear practical ways to build thought leadership, leverage AI systems, tell scalable sales stories that travel, show up in AI answers with Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), and build workflows that amplify your team. Practical, candid, and a little funny.Get your free Human+AI Trust Score report at: https://avenue9.com/trust/

  1. 6d ago

    Is AI Killing LinkedIn? Daniel Disney on the Future of Social Selling

    Send us Fan Mail Is AI-generated content, automated outreach, and an increasingly unpredictable algorithm ruining LinkedIn? In this episode of the Human-First AI Marketing® Podcast, host Mike Montague sits down with Daniel Disney, social selling expert and founder of The Daily Sales and Social Selling 365, to explore the future of LinkedIn, personal branding, and B2B sales in the age of AI. They discuss the rise of AI slop, changing LinkedIn algorithms, declining engagement, and the growing frustration with automated connection requests and generic sales pitches. Daniel shares why authentic conversations, relevant content, and genuine personalization are becoming essential for standing out and building trust in an increasingly crowded feed. Mike and Daniel also explore practical ways AI can help salespeople and marketers research prospects, generate content ideas, improve their skills, and grow their businesses while preserving the human touch. From voice and video messages to AI-powered sales assistants and the potential future of autonomous agents, they examine what social selling could look like over the next five years. The biggest takeaway: the future belongs to people who combine strong selling skills, authentic relationships, and AI capabilities to create meaningful connections. Connect with Daniel on LinkedIn and explore his social selling resources at The Daily Sales and Social Selling 365. Key Takeaways: • LinkedIn still has a human future. Despite the flood of AI-generated posts, comments, and messages, Daniel believes LinkedIn is moving toward a healthier balance of authentic human content. • LinkedIn's algorithm is constantly changing. Users are seeing more content from strangers and older posts, making it important to focus on meaningful engagement with your network. • Social selling happens across the entire LinkedIn experience. Your profile, content, comments, connections, and direct messages should work together to build trust, generate leads, and create sales opportunities. • Prioritize conversations over content creation. Daniel ranks direct messaging first, content second, and commenting and personal branding third for salespeople looking to generate business. • Use AI as your social selling assistant. AI can help with research, brainstorming, drafting content, and developing sales skills while keeping your expertise and personality at the center. • Quality beats quantity in B2B outreach. Mass automation and generic connection requests rarely create the meaningful relationships needed to close significant sales opportunities. • Authentic personalization requires relevance. Effective outreach connects a prospect's specific situation with something genuinely valuable, which Daniel believes AI-generated personalization often struggles to accomplish. • Voice and video messages help you stand out. Personalized audio and video messages communicate sincerity, personality, and attention in ways that cut through automated LinkedIn outreach. • AI gives small businesses powerful new capabilities. Daniel uses AI to create content, develop ideas, build websites, and grow his business as a solopreneur with limited resources. • AI agents could reshape the future of social selling. Daniel envisions a future where AI agents handle prospect research, meeting scheduling, and sales coaching, while human relationships continue to play a central role. At Avenue9, we capture your expertise and turn it into content, conversations, and client testimonials, building trust with humans and AI at the same time. Get your free Human-AI Trust Score report. Want to be a guest? Send Mike Montague a message on PodMatch here.

  2. Oct 19

    Soul at Scale with Noah Fleming

    Send us Fan Mail How do you grow your business with AI and automation while preserving the human connections that make your brand special? In this episode of the Human-First AI Marketing® Podcast, Mike Montague sits down with Noah Fleming, author of Soul at Scale, to explore how businesses can maintain their human edge in an increasingly automated world. From the Savannah Bananas' remarkable success to the power of personal customer experiences, they discuss why doing things that don't scale can create extraordinary growth, loyalty, and long-term competitive advantages. Mike and Noah explore practical ways to simplify your business, strengthen customer relationships, and use AI to amplify what makes your company unique. They discuss the importance of getting closer to your customers, eliminating unnecessary complexity, measuring the value of memorable experiences, and knowing where human judgment and AI capabilities work best together. You'll discover why making every customer interaction meaningful, memorable, and personal is a powerful strategy for building trust, creating organic growth, and scaling your business without losing its soul. Connect with Noah Fleming on LinkedIn to follow his work and insights. Key Takeaways: • Do things that don't scale to build a business that does. Personal phone calls, direct customer conversations, and small acts of care create the loyalty and word-of-mouth that fuel organic growth. • Stay close to your customers and employees. Leaders who spend time on the front lines gain firsthand insights into customer needs, employee challenges, and opportunities to improve the business. • Protect the human moments in your customer experience. Identify the touchpoints where personal attention, empathy, and genuine connection make the biggest difference before introducing AI automation. • Simplify your processes before automating them. Fix broken processes, remove unnecessary complexity, and eliminate customer frustrations before using technology to scale your operations. • Make every customer interaction meaningful, memorable, and personal. Evaluate your customer experience through these three qualities, including how your business handles difficult conversations and delivers bad news. • Focus on existing customers to create compounding growth. Investing in customer retention, repeat business, and referrals creates sustainable growth while reducing the constant pressure to acquire new customers. • Turn customer feedback into meaningful conversations. Use surveys, reviews, and customer data as opportunities to personally follow up, solve problems, and show customers that their opinions matter. • Empower employees to create memorable experiences. Give your team the freedom, tools, and confidence to surprise customers through thoughtful, unexpected acts of service that generate lasting loyalty and word-of-mouth. • Make your company's soul a competitive advantage. As automated interactions become increasingly common, businesses that preserve authentic human connections can stand out and build stronger customer relationships. • Use AI to amplify your expertise and creativity. Noah shares how he uses AI to build custom tools, improve productivity, develop ideas, and support his writing while maintaining his personal voice, experience, and professional judgment. At Avenue9, we capture your expertise and turn it into content, conversations, and client testimonials, building trust with humans and AI at the same time. Get your free Human-AI Trust Score report. Want to be a guest? Send Mike Montague a message on PodMatch here.

  3. Oct 12

    Hybrid Marketing & Delivering Marketing Joy with Kirby Hasseman

    Send us Fan Mail What happens when digital marketing gets so crowded that physical experiences start feeling fresh again? In this episode of the Human-First AI Marketing® Podcast, Mike Montague sits down with Kirby Hasseman, author of Hybrid Marketing and founder of Hasseman Marketing, to explore why the strongest marketing strategies blend digital reach with real-world human connection. They dig into the comeback of promotional products, direct mail, events, and face-to-face experiences; why useful, high-quality branded merchandise can create lasting impressions; and how marketers can stand out as digital channels become increasingly crowded. Kirby also shares lessons from building Hasseman Marketing and hosting the Delivering Marketing Joy podcast, including the value of consistency, experimentation, relationships, and creating marketing people genuinely enjoy receiving. The conversation offers a practical reminder for marketers navigating AI and automation: technology gives us more ways to reach people, while memorable brands still earn attention through creativity, generosity, and human connection. You’ll leave with ideas for building a hybrid marketing mix that connects online and offline experiences, creates more memorable customer touchpoints, and delivers a little more joy along the way. Read the episode recap here. Key Takeaways: Hybrid marketing creates more ways to be remembered. Combining digital channels with physical experiences like promotional products, direct mail, events, and face-to-face interactions gives brands more meaningful opportunities to connect.Quality and usefulness make promotional products more powerful. Kirby sees growing demand for merchandise people genuinely want to keep and use, which also makes usability a practical form of sustainability.Physical marketing can cut through digital overload. As inboxes, feeds, webinars, and downloadable content become increasingly crowded, a thoughtful tangible experience can earn attention and stay visible longer.Marketing should create joy for the recipient. Kirby’s “Delivering Marketing Joy” philosophy encourages marketers to think about how an interaction makes someone feel and create experiences people appreciate receiving.Human relationships remain a valuable marketing channel. Networking, trade shows, conversations, and personal connections create memorable moments that can complement scalable digital outreach.Consistency compounds over time. Kirby’s experience building his business, content, and podcast demonstrates how consistently showing up builds familiarity, relationships, and trust.Experimentation keeps marketing moving forward. Marketers benefit from trying ideas, learning from the response, and continually improving their mix instead of searching for one perfect tactic.The best marketing mix connects online and offline experiences. Hybrid marketing treats physical and digital channels as parts of the same customer journey, allowing each interaction to reinforce the others.At Avenue9, we capture your expertise and turn it into content, conversations, and client testimonials, building trust with humans and AI at the same time. Get your free Human-AI Trust Score report. Want to be a guest? Send Mike Montague a message on PodMatch here.

  4. Oct 5

    Using AI for Local SEO with Tyler Henn

    Send us Fan Mail AI is changing how people search for local businesses. Longer, more conversational searches give tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google’s AI-powered search more context to understand what someone actually needs and recommend businesses that are genuinely relevant.  In this episode, Mike Montague talks with local SEO expert Tyler Henn of Henn House about what this shift means for local businesses and how reputation, reviews, third-party validation, and a strong Google Business Profile are becoming increasingly important signals for both traditional and AI-powered search. Tyler shares practical strategies for improving local visibility, including building service-specific website pages, creating clear connections between your services and locations, and giving search engines enough context to understand exactly who you serve and what makes your business unique.  They also explore a refreshingly simple idea for the AI search era: build the online reputation your business has earned in the real world. AI can help capture customer stories, reviews, expertise, and other trust signals so great local businesses become easier for humans and AI to find, understand, and recommend. Key Takeaways: Third-party validation matters more in AI search. Reviews, citations, and mentions across trusted platforms help search engines and AI systems understand your reputation and credibility.Conversational search rewards specificity. People can describe exactly what they need, making detailed information about your services, expertise, and customers increasingly valuable.Build a reputation worth recommending. Great customer experiences, strong reviews, and consistently doing good work create the signals that help local businesses earn visibility.Your Google Business Profile is the foundation of local SEO. A complete, accurate profile with the right categories, services, and information gives Google important context about your business.Give search engines enough detail to understand what you do. Clearly defining your services, specialties, locations, and customer needs increases your chances of appearing for specific searches.Create dedicated pages for important services. Individual service pages give search engines more context and create more opportunities to match your business with relevant searches.Make your differentiation specific. Concrete practices, specialized processes, customer experiences, and real stories provide stronger reasons to recommend your business than generic marketing claims.Your entire local presence contributes to SEO. Your website, reviews, social activity, networking, business listings, and offline reputation collectively shape how your business is understood online.Use AI to amplify expertise you already have. AI can accelerate research, content, and SEO work when it is guided by someone who understands the strategy and knows what good work looks like.Competitive local SEO still requires expertise and judgment. AI can help establish a solid foundation, while highly competitive markets require thoughtful strategy and ongoing execution.AI search is becoming increasingly personalized. As AI understands more context about a searcher’s needs and preferences, local recommendations can become more specific to the individual.At Avenue9, we capture your expertise and turn it into content, conversations, and client testimonials, building trust with humans and AI at the same time. Get your free Human-AI Trust Score report. Want to be a guest? Send Mike Montague a message on PodMatch here.

  5. Sep 28

    Old School Service, New School Tools with David Levine

    Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the Human-First AI Marketing Podcast, Mike Montague talks with David Levine, author of Old School Service, New School Tools, about how small businesses can use AI without losing the personal touch that keeps customers coming back. David shares lessons from nearly 20 years of running a brick-and-mortar business, where strong relationships, genuine conversations, and memorable service helped him compete without the biggest budget or the lowest prices. Together, they explore how AI can act as a multiplier for customer service, marketing, and follow-up, freeing business owners to spend more time shaking hands, picking up the phone, listening to customers, and building trust. The big takeaway: technology changes, but human nature does not. The businesses that win will use new school tools to make old school service easier, more consistent, and more scalable. Key Takeaways: Use AI as a multiplier for better human service. David’s core message is that AI should speed up repetitive tasks so business owners can spend more time calling customers, visiting clients, listening, and making people feel valued.Technology changes, but human nature does not. Tools will keep evolving, but people still want to be seen, heard, appreciated, and helped by real humans.Customer experience matters more than customer service departments. David encourages businesses to think of service as the full customer experience, with sales, support, operations, and follow-up all working together.Listening sells better than selling. He argues that many customers avoid salespeople because they feel sold to, while salespeople who listen closely can create better conversations and better outcomes.Authentic reviews build trust; fake reviews destroy it. David warns against buying reviews and recommends earning steady, real feedback from happy customers, even if that means only asking for a few reviews each week.Bad reviews can become opportunities. He explains that AI can help business owners pause, de-escalate, and draft thoughtful responses when emotions are running high after a negative review.Follow-up should add value instead of saying “just checking in.” David points out that generic follow-ups feel empty, while AI can help create more useful, customized messages that serve the customer.Small moments create raving fans. Smiles, sincere apologies, quick communication, surprise value-adds, and anticipating customer needs all help turn ordinary service into memorable experiences.Protect your team if you want happy customers. David connects employee experience to customer experience, sharing that a happy, motivated team is more likely to create positive customer moments.Raving fans beat AI. His biggest takeaway is that companies using AI to create more time for real customer connection will build loyal fans, and those fans remain more powerful than any algorithm.At Avenue9, we capture your expertise and turn it into content, conversations, and client testimonials, building trust with humans and AI at the same time. Get your free Human-AI Trust Score report. Want to be a guest? Send Mike Montague a message on PodMatch here.

  6. Sep 21

    Fueling Your GTM Strategy with AI Insights with Francis Brero

    Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the Human-First AI and Marketing Podcast, Mike Montague sits down with Francis Brero of HG Insights to explore how AI is changing go-to-market strategy across sales and marketing. They unpack the growing complexity of B2B buying committees, the shifting role of SDRs, and why better data, intent signals, and account insights can help sellers show up with more relevance, preparation, and trust. Francis shares a practical view of where AI creates real leverage: capturing the playbooks of top sellers, turning scattered research into repeatable workflows, improving CRM data, and helping teams separate simple “$5 tasks” from high-judgment “$5,000 decisions.” The big takeaway: AI works best when it helps humans have better conversations, build stronger buyer experiences, and avoid the growing pile of generic work slop nobody asked for. Top takeaways: B2B selling is returning to first principles. Francis emphasized that strong GTM strategy starts with identifying the right accounts, understanding their problems, and showing how your solution fits their budget and priorities.Buying committees matter more than individual leads. He explained that B2B sales still happens through individuals, but the organization has to buy, which means sellers need to understand champions, CFOs, legal, compliance, and other stakeholders.AI can help teams move beyond old efficiency games. Francis pointed out that the SaaS-era obsession with SDR efficiency, MQLs, and funnel metrics is giving way to a more account-based, insight-driven GTM motion.The best sellers’ playbooks should become institutional assets. He said AI gives companies a way to capture how top sellers research, prepare, and frame conversations so the whole team can benefit.Relevance beats creepy personalization. Francis warned that mentioning personal details without a business reason can feel invasive, while useful account insight helps anchor a better sales conversation.AI should prepare sellers, not replace the human selling moment. He pushed back on AI salespeople and virtual reps when the buyer experience would be better served by a prepared human with a thoughtful point of view.The best AI use cases are often “$5 tasks.” Francis described simple prep work, summaries, research, and note-taking as low-cost tasks where AI can save time and improve the human interaction.Call summaries need human judgment after the meeting. He noted that AI note-takers often miss the “last mile,” which is asking the human what actually mattered and what will move the deal or project forward.Voice-based AI can change the work experience. Francis shared how he uses AI voice mode while walking to process email and think through work, creating an assistant-like experience that used to require an executive assistant.AI investment should solve meaningful human problems. Looking ahead, Francis argued that AI should be directed toward underserved needs, such as access to care in rural areas, rather than only convenience tools for the most privileged users.At Avenue9, we capture your expertise and turn it into content, conversations, and client testimonials, building trust with humans and AI at the same time. Get your free Human-AI Trust Score report. Want to be a guest? Send Mike Montague a message on PodMatch here.

  7. Sep 14

    Evaluating AI Models with Sherif Higazy

    Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Human-First AI Marketing, Mike Montague talks with Sherif Higazy, Founder of Megaton AI, a benchmarking and advisory firm for generative media, about one of the hardest questions in AI right now: how do you evaluate which models are actually useful when everything is changing so quickly? Sherif shares what Megaton is seeing across AI video model leaderboards, why Chinese video models are currently pushing the creative frontier, and how marketers can think more clearly about model quality, cost, privacy, and real-world use cases. The conversation explores the future of AI-generated video, music, animation, visual effects, real-time generation, world models, and immersive experiences that may soon feel closer to a Holodeck than a traditional editing suite. Mike and Sherif also unpack the “attention tax” of AI slop, the role of human authorship, and why the best creative results still come from people who know what they want to say before they ask AI to help make it. Key Takeaways:  Keeping up with AI model changes has become nearly impossible without active testing. Sherif explains that constant marketing hype makes it hard to know which models are actually good unless someone is regularly evaluating them.Creative AI models are harder to evaluate than text-based LLMs. Unlike text models that can be tested with clear tasks, video and creative models require more subjective judgment around quality, style, and artistic usefulness.Chinese AI video models are currently leading the pack. Sherif points to models from Chinese labs, especially ByteDance’s SeeDance 2.5, as some of the strongest options for cinematic AI video generation.Open-source and local models matter for companies with sensitive IP. For businesses that cannot upload confidential material to cloud-based tools, locally run models create a safer path to using AI video.AI video works best when users build workflows instead of expecting instant magic. Sherif emphasizes that strong results come from developing an eye for quality, learning the tools, and treating AI as part of a creative production process.AI is expanding what can be made, especially for teams with smaller budgets. He shares that projects once blocked by the high cost of visual effects, animation, or production may now become financially possible.Human authorship still determines whether AI-generated content feels worth watching. Sherif warns that audiences can sense when content lacks care, intention, or a clear creative reason to exist.AI slop creates an attention tax. He describes low-effort AI content as a burden on people’s time and attention, especially when it takes longer to consume than it took to make.Some of the strongest AI use cases are animation, visual effects, training videos, marketing videos, and music. Sherif sees these areas as practical entry points where AI can help people create things that were previously expensive or out of reach.World models may be the next major leap in creative AI. Sherif predicts that tools capable of turning images into explorable 3D spaces could open the door to Holodeck-like experiences, immersive history, gaming, and new storytelling formats.At Avenue9, we capture your expertise and turn it into content, conversations, and client testimonials, building trust with humans and AI at the same time. Get your free Human-AI Trust Score report. Want to be a guest? Send Mike Montague a message on PodMatch here.

  8. Sep 7

    Marketing Attribution & AI Analytics with Keith Perhac

    Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the Human-First AI Marketing Podcast, Mike Montague talks with Keith Perhac, founder of SegMetrics, about the changing world of marketing attribution, AI analytics, and zero-click buyer journeys. They explore why traditional tracking is getting messier as bot traffic, AI answers, and platform-controlled experiences reshape how people discover, research, and decide before ever visiting your website. Keith shares practical ways marketers can rethink attribution by focusing on real human behavior, first-party data, CRM insights, funnel performance, and the signals that actually help teams make better decisions. The conversation also covers how AI can help uncover conversion outliers, improve segmentation, and turn analytics from a confusing spreadsheet swamp into a clearer map for smarter marketing decisions. Key Takeaways: Zero-click marketing is changing attribution. Keith explained that buyers increasingly get answers from Google, Claude, ChatGPT, YouTube, social platforms, and AI summaries before they ever reach your website, which makes the old website-first tracking model less reliable.Your brand’s knowledge now lives in many places. AI pulls from your website, social profiles, review sites, YouTube, and what others say about you, so marketers need to understand what information buyers are finding across the whole ecosystem.Attribution is about who people are and what they do. Keith emphasized that attribution should go beyond source tracking and help marketers understand which types of people are taking the actions that matter.First-party data creates more trustworthy insights. Instead of relying too heavily on ad platforms or third-party assumptions, Keith recommends asking people directly and storing useful details in your CRM through tags and custom fields.Segment analysis often matters more than surface-level metrics. For B2B companies with smaller audiences, knowing which segments convert and why can be more useful than obsessing over clicks, button colors, or broad campaign averages.Use AI to find conversion outliers. Keith shared that AI can quickly analyze funnel data by industry, source, or custom field to reveal which groups convert unusually well or poorly.Improve or cut weak segments intentionally. When a segment underperforms, marketers have a real business choice: create a better funnel for that group or decide they are outside the ideal audience.Take funnels one at a time. Keith recommends starting with one funnel, identifying the biggest conversion modifiers, and improving the most meaningful gaps before overbuilding dozens of segmented journeys.AI works best when it analyzes real data instead of guessing. Keith described SegMetrics’ AI MCP server as a way to connect AI directly to marketing analytics so it can query actual funnel and CRM data more accurately.Marketers need decisions, not more data dumps. Keith noted that AI can create a deluge of information, so the real value comes from turning analytics into clear priorities and next actions.At Avenue9, we capture your expertise and turn it into content, conversations, and client testimonials, building trust with humans and AI at the same time. Get your free Human-AI Trust Score report. Want to be a guest? Send Mike Montague a message on PodMatch here.

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About

Turn your expertise into content, conversations, and clients with Human-First AI Marketing. Learn how and where to leverage AI without burning bridges, burning cash, or burning out your team.For founders and marketing leaders at expert-led B2B firms, Mike Montague, founder of Avenue9, hosts weekly conversations with AI and marketing experts and other founders to learn how they use AI in marketing.You'll hear practical ways to build thought leadership, leverage AI systems, tell scalable sales stories that travel, show up in AI answers with Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), and build workflows that amplify your team. Practical, candid, and a little funny.Get your free Human+AI Trust Score report at: https://avenue9.com/trust/

Information

  • Creator
    Mike Montague
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    110
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 ® All Rights Reserved - Avenue9 LLC | Human-First AI Marketing is a registered service mark.
  • Show Website
    Human-First AI Marketing Podcast by Avenue9

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