As the world becomes even more (!!) digitalized, marketers are eager to keep up with the trends, explore new ways to engage with customers, and optimize their marketing strategies.
With a new wave of AI democratization, possibilities for marketing grow endlessly, and the transformation of the market is inevitable.
However, leveraging such an emerging technology as AI can be tricky. There are all sorts of ethical and technical questions to answer before diving fully into it. Are we entering a gray legal area when we feed a competitor article into ChatGPT “for inspiration”?
Or is it no different from doing the research yourself, reading through many articles, and combing through expert opinions to create a well-rounded piece of content?
When does “teaching” become stealing? Should we double- and triple-check the information AI offers?
And while there’s still a lot to unveil, AI can be easily used for some straightforward automation and to provide strategies and tools for implementing AI in your marketing campaigns.
AI for Marketing Automation
It’s fairly easy to use the power of AI to streamline and optimize marketing processes. By improving their efficiency with data analysis, customer segmentation, and personalized messaging, marketers can generate much better results.
Deep research and well-structured customer communication provide amazing insights into customer behavior and purchasing patterns. However, this kind of research takes a very long time. Automating this would allow for more effective marketing strategies.
AI Tools for Marketing Automation
Google AI tools for marketers, and you’ll get approximately 492,000,000 results right away. Some of them just have ChatGPT stuck to them, and some are genuinely different and helpful.
I definitely believe that AI is here to stay and will help take away the mundane tasks that make creative jobs a little less interesting and editing/proofreading time-consuming and demotivating.
Some of my all-time favorite tools:
Grammarly and/or Quillbot - Both are great AI-operated tools to check spelling and offer paraphrasing options.
ChatGPT - Not for actual content generation but for content brainstorming, getting out of writer’s block, and showing alternative paths to the existing roadmap
Mage.space - A pretty cool image generation tool that allows me to create beautiful images with prompts and use them without any copyright violations. When I quickly need to spice up my LinkedIn post with an image, it’s my go-to tool.
Riverside AI transcriptions - An amazing new addition that saves me hours. I no longer need to edit the videos right away while I still remember which part was about a question I wanted to make into a short or a teaser. Now, I’m just reading through the transcript and editing the words, not even the video.
Tl;dv - A simple and brilliant solution for recording and transcribing meetings and keeping your conversations in one place.
I also just use it when I do interviews, so I don’t have to try and scribble the important points in my notebook but simply go back to the transcript when the conversation is over.
AI for Marketing Personalization
Wherever you look nowadays as a marketer, it’s all about personalization. Products can’t just be pushed on people as the next big thing that they may not want right this minute but will definitely make their neighbors jealous.
People want to be associated with the products they buy, and the people they buy them from.
Support what companies support, and they won’t switch as easily as before if the vision of the company speaks to them.
Think Netflix. I like dark thrillers, preferably with some deep psychotherapy picking the brains of serial killers to know why they do what they do. You may like Star Trek or Japanese cooking shows. It wouldn’t make any sense if Netflix started suggesting I watch “The Curry Songs”!
Unless the chef there cooks curry with the remains of his victims and an undercover dishwasher is trying to expose him, this is just not my cup of tea. And Netflix uses AI to make sure I only get the creepiest movies out there, and you get the best ramen recipes!
Your customers know what they want, too. So the best thing to do is to study your customers’ preferences. When they purchase, how and why they complain, what makes them use your product again, and what features remain untouched.
These and many other questions will help you learn customer behavior and use this knowledge to offer a better user experience.
AI for Predictive Analysis
AI learns through analyzing data. And the more it analyzes, the better the results are. So this might seem to only be relevant to later-stage companies. But, it’s not completely true.
As an earlier-stage company, you can absolutely make use of the databases and free information that other companies in your space share.
This kind of research and analysis can help determine the best times to send emails or the most effective channels to use for advertising.
Airbnb does that. It optimizes its pricing strategy by analyzing demand, supply, and competitor pricing. That’s why you can see price fluctuations. They happen because Airbnb predicts future demand and changes pricing accordingly.
Chatbots for Marketing
You may have been interacting with AI for way longer than you expected. Think about all the times you’ve chatted with someone on a SaaS website. Sure, sometimes you’ve actually been talking with a real person, but there’s a big chance that most of the time you were talking to a bot.
At least for the first few minutes.
Chatbots are AI-powered virtual assistants that can communicate with customers through messaging platforms and can be used for a variety of marketing tasks.
Most businesses tend to implement those to figure out who’d be the best person to help you with your problem if you’ve got something unique you’re dealing with.
Or point out the answer to your problem in the FAQ if it seems like it’ll be enough to help you.
As you can see, chatbots take away mundane tasks that can be dealt with by simply looking around. They may not be the best solution if you’ve stumbled upon something that’s not covered by the FAQ and need real assistance with your complex problem.
There are different types of chatbots, too:
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Customer service bot - For making your customers' voices heard immediately.
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Sales bot - Guiding customers down the sales funnel and qualifying leads.
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Marketing bot - Best for promotions.
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Conversational AI - For a more “human” interaction. These involve much more preliminary learning than the other types.
Conclusion
There’s no doubt that AI transforms the landscape of almost all industries. It has a great impact on marketing and customer communications. By leveraging AI tools, marketers are now able to offer faster responses and a more personalized user experience.
It also helps gain valuable insights into customer behavior that drive engagement and conversions.
Marketers are always on the lookout for new trends and tools to remain relevant in a competitive digital space. Now, it’s as important as ever to keep up with rapidly evolving AI tools that can make a huge difference for a business.