Unlocking Agency Growth with AI: The Door4 Approach

The marketing world is moving faster than ever, and the hard truth is that agencies need to adapt—or risk being left behind. At Door4, we’ve built our reputation on delivering large-scale, complex projects. Whether it’s managing Adobe Commerce platforms or handling seven-figure media budgets, we work at the forefront of modern marketing and technology.

But here’s the catch: even these technologies—tools we see as foundational—are still relatively young. The way we use them today will look very different in just a few years. And that’s where the real opportunity lies: not in sticking with “business as usual,” but in leaning into innovation, adapting, and building for the future.

That’s what we’re doing at Door4—embracing the tools, processes, and philosophies that will shape tomorrow’s marketing.

Building a System of Exponential Possibilities

I use a simple analogy when explaining this to our team. Imagine a cube – 3x3x3. Each small cube (27 of them) within it is useful in its own right, but when you connect them, the connections (and possibilities) multiply exponentially. This is how we think about the tools and platforms we use.

Each one—be it Retool, GenAI, Google Maps, or Scoro (in some of our own use cases) —adds value on its own. But by integrating them, we unlock exponential, practical benefits. Take our work management platform, Scoro. We’ve integrated it with several other systems in our stack so that – for instance, new lead activity automatically generates tasks for the right team members. These tasks sync with our HR platform, showing us in real time which client services team members are in the business that week.

The Result?

• Frictionless Coordination: Leads flow directly into actionable plans, no bottlenecks and no missed opportunities.
• Optimised Resources: We always know who’s available to deliver for clients.
• Scalable Processes: The system evolves with us, effortlessly managing growing complexity.  The tools never get ‘too busy’.

This approach—combining technical ingenuity and business benefit with a human touch—drives everything we do.

Regional Connections in a National Network

Location still matters. While we work as a national agency, we deliver our best results with clients we have a regional relationship with. That’s why we’re using tools like Google Maps and GenAI to unlock deeper location intelligence for our CRM.

Automated CRM enrichment, calculating driving distance (proximity) of companies via Google Maps, and OpenAI powered company descriptions

What This Enables:

• Detailed Summaries: GenAI provides plain-English overviews of CRM prospect locations, summarising regional trends and characteristics.
• Radius and Grouping Insights: We identify geographic clusters, helping tailor campaigns to specific regions.
• Actionable Strategies: Regional insights enable better targeting, ensuring campaigns resonate with local audiences.

By combining definitive data sources like Google Maps with GenAI-driven insights, we bridge the gap between high-tech capabilities and the power of human relationships.

Plain English Insights That Engage

At Door4, we believe marketing should be accessible, even entertaining. That’s why we use platforms like Google Sheets, Slack, and GenAI to automate summaries of data capture exercises. These aren’t your standard dry reports; they’re witty, engaging, and instantly actionable.

Imagine This:

• Your team completes a survey on Christmas meal preferences. Moments later, Slack pings with a GenAI-generated summary that reads like a chatty office conversation.
• Complex survey data is distilled into plain-English insights, ready for quick decision-making.
• Conversations are more engaging than a data-dump.  The team engage with words, in ways they may not with formulaic data.

The ability to turn raw data into something readable and relatable isn’t just efficient—it’s fun. And that matters more than you might think.

Evolving Tools: From Zapier to GenAI

For years, we’ve relied on integration tools like Zapier to streamline workflows and connect platforms. These tools have been invaluable in creating smoother operations, reducing friction, and scaling processes.

Now, with GenAI in the mix, these workflows have evolved even further. GenAI connections allow for smarter automation and richer outputs, turning traditional integrations into dynamic systems. Platforms like Retool give us the ability to design bespoke dashboards, while GenAI transforms data into meaningful insights at every step.

The result? Systems that don’t just save time but actively make us smarter and more effective.

Scaling Content Creation with GenAI

One of the most transformative aspects of our work has been programmatic content creation using GenAI. With tools like OpenAI and Retool, we:

• Generate multi-intent content for skimmers, detail-seekers, and decision-makers.
• Create structured JSON outputs for web content, ensuring precise implementation within CMS platforms.
• Enrich CRM profiles at scale—processing thousands of companies per hour with high-quality, actionable descriptions.

The key isn’t just speed—it’s the ability to maintain tone, context, and structure across outputs. This means our content feels human, even as it’s created programmatically by GenAI.

Whilt GenAI tools like ChatGPT are available to everybody, the ability to create programmatic interfaces means that this technology can be built into other tools to offer competitive advantage.

Let’s Talk Innovation

Marketing is an ever-changing landscape. At Door4, we don’t just observe these changes; we embrace them. From turning survey data into conversational insights to unlocking exponential benefits through integrated systems, we’re building a future where technology enhances creativity, not replaces it.

I’d truly love to hear from – and collaborate with – others working on similar innovations in our space. How are you using GenAI tools like OpenAI, Gemini & Anthropic and low-code platforms to evolve your approach to martech and automation? The most exciting ideas come from collaboration—let’s do some cool stuff together.  I see this as a moment where the true benefits lie in collaboration not competition – a sentiment that I know is rare in agency land.