AI-Driven Marketing Strategy: Leveraging New Technologies to Cultivate Enduring Customer Relationships
Columbia Business School
Columbia Business School (CBS) is a graduate-level professional school within Columbia University, founded in 1916 and located in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It is one of the oldest business schools in the United States, established with a mandate to connect rigorous academic inquiry with the practical demands of commerce in the world's leading financial centre. CBS moved to its current purpose-built home at Columbia's Manhattanville campus — Henry R. Kravis Hall and David Geffen Hall — beginning in 2022, a $600 million development that physically reflects the school's ambitions. The academic philosophy is anchored in what CBS calls "ideas at work": the conviction that theoretical insight and real-world application are inseparable, not sequential.Accreditations and RankingsAccreditations:AACSB accreditedRankings:Financial Times Global MBA Ranking: #9 (2024)Financial Times Executive Education Open Programs: Top 15 globally (2023)Financial Times Executive Education Custom Programs: Top 15 globally (2023)Bloomberg Businessweek MBA Ranking: #7 in the U.S. (2023)QS Global MBA Ranking: #14 worldwide (2024)U.S. News & World Report Best Business Schools: #8 (2024)Executive Education at a GlanceColumbia Business School Executive Education is one of the most active executive education operations in the Ivy League, running over 40 open-enrollment programs annually alongside a substantial custom and corporate solutions portfolio. The school is particularly recognised for programs in finance, value investing, private equity, digital business, healthcare management, and leadership — a reflection of both faculty research strengths and the industries concentrated in New York. Programs range from two-day intensive workshops to multi-week certificates, with the Columbia Senior Executive Program standing out as the flagship general management offering for leaders with significant organisational responsibility. Online and hybrid formats have expanded meaningfully since 2020, with several certificate programs now available in fully live-virtual formats. Open program fees typically range from approximately $3,000 for shorter workshops to $15,000 or more for multi-week residential programs; corporate custom engagements are scoped and priced separately. CBS does not widely publicise scholarships for open executive education participants, though some programs offer alumni pricing for Columbia graduates.Campus and FacilitiesThe Manhattanville campus — bounded by 125th and 133rd Streets in upper Manhattan — represents one of the most significant new business school developments of the past decade. Henry R. Kravis Hall, opened in 2022, was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and features tiered, flexible classrooms built explicitly for discussion-heavy pedagogy, executive boardrooms, and collaborative spaces designed to eliminate the distinction between seminar and social learning. David Geffen Hall connects to Kravis and houses the business school's social and dining infrastructure. Beyond the buildings, the location matters enormously: executive participants are forty minutes from Wall Street, minutes from Harlem's emerging tech and media ecosystem, and adjacent to Columbia's broader university campus — including its medical centre, law school, and School of International and Public Affairs — enabling cross-disciplinary conversations that are structurally difficult to replicate in isolated suburban campuses.Faculty and ResearchCBS has approximately 200 full-time faculty members, drawn from economics, sociology, psychology, finance, and operations — an unusually broad disciplinary base for a business school. The school is home to several research centres directly relevant to executive learners, including the Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing, the Center on Global Brand Leadership, the Richard Paul Richman Center for Business, Law, and Public Policy, and the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Center for Leadership and Ethics. Faculty such as Tano Santos, Sheena Iyengar, and Rita McGrath are not only active researchers but regular contributors to public discourse on investing, decision-making, and competitive strategy — and they teach in executive programs rather than delegating to adjuncts. This proximity of research agenda to classroom instruction gives CBS executive programs an intellectual density that distinguishes them from provider-style executive training.Student Body, Alumni, and Career OutcomesColumbia Business School's alumni network exceeds 47,000 graduates across more than 100 countries, with particular density in financial services, technology, private equity, media, and healthcare — industries where New York's gravitational pull is strongest. Executive education cohorts are typically international and senior: participants in flagship programs such as the Senior Executive Program routinely represent companies from across North America, Europe, and Asia, with functional backgrounds spanning C-suite leadership, investment management, and entrepreneurship. CBS alumni include Warren Buffett (Class of 1951), who credits his time studying under Benjamin Graham as foundational to his investment philosophy — a lineage that continues to attract finance professionals to the school's investing-focused programs specifically. For senior executives, the CBS network operates not only through formal alumni chapters in major cities but through the informal density of CBS graduates in leadership roles at institutions including Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, Blackstone, and major technology firms.
Available Cohorts
Choose your preferred start date
All-inclusive program fee
Duration
4 days
Format
in-person
Topic
Marketing
Language
English
About This Program
Why Columbia Business School?
Few business schools can claim a campus embedded in one of the world's most consequential cities — and actually mean it. Columbia Business School has built its entire executive education philosophy around New York as a living laboratory: finance, media, technology, healthcare, and policy all intersect within walking distance of campus, and the faculty who teach executives are the same people advising the institutions that drive those industries.
Your Profile
- C-suite executives including CMOs and VPs involved with marketing, marketing strategy, customer relationship management, and long-term growth
- Leaders in charge of data and knowledge management including brand managers, product managers, and CTOs
- Focused team members involved in growth initiatives (e.g., growth hacking teams)
Benefits
- Acquire an integrative Digital Marketing strategy framework
- Explore the vast Digital Marketing landscape beyond singular generative AI tools
- Seamlessly align growth strategies with the Digital Marketing functions
- Effectively measure outcomes and allocate budgets
- Learn from faculty who are world leaders in their field and at the forefront of AI-driven digital marketing strategy
- Build a network of peers from different sectors, cultures, and countries who can provide diverse perspectives and insights
What You'll Learn
- Four days in-person at our Manhattanville Campus (NYC) - Gain the key knowledge and frameworks needed to create AI-driven digital marketing strategies for now and in the future that leverage digital marketing tools for customer relationship management and growth goals, including: Understanding the new media landscape, The evolving role of technology and the impact of artificial intelligence, Building AI-driven digital marketing and customer relationship management strategies that balance complementary objectives, like long-term branding and short-term sales, while achieving high incremental ROI, Customer management tools for acquisition, retention, and development, Creating a consistent plan that integrates the breadth of available tools, allows the inclusion of upcoming ones, and allocates the right budgets to each
- Day One Customer Acquisition, Retention, and Development in a New Technological Environment - Explore the evolving media landscape reshaped by generative AI and the MarTech industry. Take an in-depth look at the Acquisition, Retention, and Development (ARD) Framework, adapting marketing strategies within new regulatory contexts. Gain insights into the latest trends, including cookie deprecation and privacy changes, enhance understanding of consumer decision-making, and discover how to leverage Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) and AI for effective customer retention and development, including: Learning the Customer Acquisition, Retention, Development (ARD) Framework, Get a deeper understanding of the new media landscape, Explore the recent years’ emerging trends: generative AI, MarTech, cookie deprecation and new privacy rules, Building a decision funnel for your customers, Understand which marketing actions to focus on through Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) sensitivity analysis, Explore Retention and Development Technologies with CDPs and AI
- Day Two Digital Marketing Channels - The media landscape is a dynamic and multifaceted ecosystem where digital platforms, content creation, data, and technology intersect. Success in digital marketing requires a deep understanding of these elements in order to navigate them and leverage them effectively. Delve deeper into various customer acquisition technologies that you can leverage to reach and engage your target audience more effectively as part of your customer relationship strategy. Gain insights into acquisition technologies including display advertising and search advertising - With AI, without cookies, Rethink how to incorporate key elements of social media marketing including TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, (Virtual) Influencers, and Influencer platforms
- Day Three Aligning Customer Management Goals and Digital Marketing Channels - Digital Marketing Strategy is akin to a well-structured map. Your goals are the destinations while the digital marketing channels are the routes leading to them. Aligning the right channels with your objectives ensures you reach your desired outcome. Discover the synergy between your customer relationship strategy, customer-centric goals and the digital marketing avenues that will help you achieve them. Understand the different aspects of content marketing, Retention and development techniques for social, email, content, messaging, and chat
- Day Three The Evolving Role of Technology - Every day, digital marketers encounter new developments, from influencers and emerging platforms to novel tools and techniques. Learn how to adeptly strategize in the face of rapid technological changes by crafting a consistent approach that responds to real-time market dynamics, including: The impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Integrating retail platforms, Incorporating and managing MarTech, How to effectively use the latest generative AI technologies to enhance creativity, Explore content marketing using generative AI
- Day Four Investment and Budget Management - Successful digital marketing investment involves a strategic approach that revolves around ROI and avoids pitfalls like fraud, erroneous data, and bad analytics. Learn to effectively measure outcomes and allocate budgets, Acquire strategies for more effective ROI analysis, Understand how to effectively use and interface with an ad agency
- Day Four Branding and Marketing Strategy - Branding is at the heart of a digital marketing strategy. A strong brand distinguishes an organization, builds loyalty, and drives success. Build digital strategies that balance complementary objectives like long-term branding and short-term sales
Frequently Asked Questions
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