Putting the Human Touch Back Into Marketing – An Interview with Kat Flannery
Picco Press was built on a simple belief that marketing should feel personal, purposeful, and rooted in genuine relationships rather than transactions. In this interview, the founder explores authentic brand storytelling, meaningful social media metrics, and why the human touch remains essential as AI reshapes the marketing landscape.
Kat Flannery, Founder and CEO of Picco Press
When you started Picco Press, what did you want businesses to experience differently from a traditional marketing agency?
I wanted to build strong relationships with our clients and add real value to their businesses. In this industry, you can market a business from anywhere if you know what you’re doing. But I never wanted Picco Press to feel transactional.
It was important to me to build a foundation where our clients knew we genuinely cared about their business, where we understood their struggles, celebrated their wins, and knew the highs and lows happening behind the scenes.
I believe trust is one of the most important things in business. Whether you’re in retail, food, brick-and-mortar, or marketing, if there’s no trust, it’s very difficult to sell. It’s the same with the relationships we build with our clients. They have to trust us with their brand, their reputation, and how their business is being represented to the world.
How has your background as a writer and storyteller shaped the way you build brands for clients?
Every brand has a story. Writing taught me how to reach people through words and how powerful emotion can be when you’re trying to connect with someone.
Building a brand is really about finding that story and figuring out how to keep people engaged while showing them something they may not have even realized they needed. People connect with stories, personalities, and emotions, and that’s what makes a brand memorable.
What have you learned about becoming an extension of a client’s team without losing strategic objectivity?
Being part of a client’s team is one of the best positions we can be in, in my opinion. How can you properly market a business if you don’t really know who they are?
We sit with their team, listen to their ideas, learn what’s working and what isn’t, understand where they’re struggling, and learn what got them to where they are today. Being close to the business gives us a much better understanding of the brand, but our job is also to bring that outside perspective. Sometimes being an extension of their team means being close enough to understand them while still being able to see things they may not see themselves.
What are businesses getting wrong when they treat likes and follower growth as proof that their marketing is working?
It isn’t that likes and follower growth are wrong. Those are good things. The problem is when businesses put all of their success there.
There are so many other metrics we should be looking at. How many people viewed your content? How many went to your website, clicked your link, commented, or took some kind of action?
Social media is there to keep businesses relevant and visible while consistently showing people who they are and what they do. Likes are part of that, but they’re definitely not the whole picture.
As automation and AI reshape marketing, where do you think the human element matters most?
I think it matters most in your content and how you communicate with people. People are starting to recognize AI-generated posts, and they’re even calling businesses out for it.
AI can be an incredible tool, but when a business uses it without adding any human element, people can tell. Social media is supposed to be social. Speak to your customers. Show some personality. Build trust. Give people a reason to feel like there are actual humans behind the business. Use AI to help you, but don’t let it become your entire voice.
How do you find a brand voice that feels authentic when a business has never clearly defined one?
That’s what those initial meetings with the client are for. We sit down with them and learn everything we can about their business, what they sell, who their audience is, their main demographic, where they’re selling, and, most importantly, who they are.
A lot of businesses already have a brand voice. They just haven’t defined it yet. You hear it in the way they talk about their customers, their business, and why they started. Our job is to listen, find it, and turn it into a clear, authentic voice that can carry through their marketing.
What should a small business measure if it wants to know whether social media is actually contributing to growth?
Views are one of the first things I look at. If your location and audience are targeted correctly through your content, then you need people to actually see it.
If people aren’t seeing your content, that’s your first problem. You can have great graphics, great messaging, and a great offer, but none of it matters if nobody sees it. From there, you can start looking deeper at what those people are doing: visiting your website, clicking links, commenting, engaging, or eventually becoming customers. But visibility comes first.
What principle do you refuse to compromise on as Picco Press grows?
The personal touch. I refuse to compromise on that. Our clients can email us, and we will respond. We’ll pick up the phone. We’ll check in when something doesn’t feel right or when we know they need us. I never want Picco Press to become completely transactional just because we’ve grown.
People need to know you care. They need to know you give a shit about their business and that they’re not just another number on a client list. That has been part of Picco Press from the beginning, and it’s something I will never stop doing.
What is one change business owners can make to create marketing that feels more human and more effective?
Stop using AI for everything. I understand why businesses use it. A lot of business owners aren’t graphic designers or content writers, and AI has made it incredibly easy to create graphics and write content they may not have been able to create themselves.
But that’s also where the problem starts. When everything is AI-generated, people can see through it. There’s no personality, no real voice, and nothing that makes someone feel connected to the business.
The human touch isn’t going away. We all want connection in one way or another, and businesses should embrace that. Use the tools available to you, absolutely, but make sure people can still see you in your marketing.
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