Picture this: you’re trying to get your AI assistant to pull data from your CRM, check your email marketing stats, and update your social media calendar - all in one conversation. Today, that means jumping between different tools, copying and pasting data, and losing your train of thought every few minutes.
That’s about to change.
On November 25, 2024, Anthropic launched something called the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Think of it as the missing piece that lets AI tools actually talk to your marketing stack without you playing middleman.
What is MCP, really?
Here’s the simplest way to think about MCP: it’s like a USB-C port for AI applications. Just as USB-C gives you one standard way to connect your laptop to monitors, keyboards, and external drives, MCP gives AI one standard way to connect to your CRM, analytics tools, and databases.
“MCP is an open-source standard that enables seamless integration between LLM applications and external data sources and tools.”
Model Context Protocol
Before MCP, every time you wanted your AI to work with a new tool, someone had to build a custom bridge. Imagine if every USB device needed its own special cable - that’s where we were with AI integrations.
Microsoft’s Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott nailed it when he described protocols like MCP:
“Akin to HTTP for the internet, where it allows you to do sophisticated things because the protocol itself doesn’t have much of an opinion about the payload that it carries.”
Kevin Scott, Microsoft CTO
Why marketers should care
Let’s get practical. MCP solves real problems you deal with every day:
- No more data silos. Your AI can pull from HubSpot, check Google Analytics, and update your project management tool in one conversation. No switching tabs, no copy-paste, no “let me check that and get back to you.”
- Faster campaign analysis. Instead of manually gathering data from five different platforms to see how your latest campaign performed, your AI assistant can compile everything in seconds.
- Better customer insights. Combine data from your email platform, social media, and customer support tickets to get the full picture of customer sentiment.
The team at Intercom explains the impact perfectly:
“The Model Context Protocol (MCP) provides a standard way for AI to securely connect to your business systems – without building custom integrations. With MCP, businesses can integrate AI faster, scale it across more systems, and deliver better support with less effort. In a world where speed and relevance define great support, MCP makes it simple, secure, and scalable to unlock the value of AI across your tools.”
Intercom
How to start testing MCP
Ready to try it out? Here are the tools that make it easy:
- MCP Inspector - This is your best bet for testing. It’s way more convenient than manually making requests through Claude or other tools every time.
- OpenAI Playground - If you’re already using OpenAI’s tools, you can test MCP connections here.
- Claude and ChatGPT - Both support MCP integrations, so you can test directly in the interfaces you’re probably already using.
- AI-powered IDEs - Tools like Cursor are starting to build in MCP support for developers.
The bottom line
MCP isn’t just another tech acronym to add to your list. It’s the infrastructure that makes AI actually useful for day-to-day marketing work.
Think about it: the internet didn’t get really powerful until we had standard protocols like HTTP. Email didn’t scale until we had SMTP. MCP is that standardisation moment for AI and business tools.
You don’t need to become a developer to benefit from this. But understanding what MCP enables will help you make better decisions about which AI tools to invest in and how to structure your marketing operations.
The early movers who figure out how to use AI with their full marketing stack - not just for writing emails - are going to have a serious advantage. MCP is what makes that possible.
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“We are on-track to deliver a 43% increase in inbound leads this year. There is no doubt the adoption of Growth Method is the primary driver behind these results.”
Laura Perrott, Colt Technology Services
Want to learn more?
Check out these resources:
- Ben’s Bites explanation of MCP - Great for a deeper dive
- The official MCP blog - Stay updated on new developments
The marketing world is changing fast. MCP gives you the tools to change with it.