Imagine a world where you don’t have to spend hours and hours coming up with different marketing concepts and messages. Where you can focus all your time and energy on one idea that you know will resonate with your audience.
Now, stop imagining it. Because this is now possible.
With access to large-sets of complex data and at our fingertips, you have the potential to completely transform the way that you market your business –- all you need is the insight and understanding of how to use it. When you start using data to inform your decision-making and creative processes, the results can be revolutionary.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays a significant role when it comes to empowering in-house marketing teams to get the most from the data that they hold. With the ability to analyze huge volumes of data quickly and efficiently, it’s even easier to gain insight into customer data, market trends and campaign performance. And this is just scratching the surface.
Read on to find out how your team can leverage AI to take their marketing to the next level.
Understanding AI in Marketing
Many companies are starting to see the benefits of incorporating AI as part of their business-as-usual processes, helping to automate some of the more time-consuming tasks and improve efficiency across the board. It can also be transformative when it comes to understanding your audience and customers – helping you create hyper-personalized and targeted campaigns, serving your customer’s needs more than ever before.
So what AI technologies are most applicable to marketing? Here are the top-three AI technologies you should consider adding to your tool stack:
1. Machine learning
This involves developing algorithms that enable computers to learn and improve from the data it receives without the need to be explicitly programmed. This can be used in areas such as customer segmentation and advertising optimization to help your campaigns deliver real value to your audience.
2. Natural language processing (NLP)
NLP enables computers to understand, interpret and respond to human language. This type of technology is often used in AI chatbots and virtual assistants, as well as with AI content creation tools (such as ChatGPT). This technology is great for supporting your marketing team with brainstorming activities, ideation and first-draft creations.
3. Predictive analytics
Predictive analytics leverage statistical modeling and machine learning algorithms to forecast future outcomes based on historical data. This can be used to identify customer behaviors and trends, understanding pricing optimization and to forecast product demand.
7 Benefits of AI for In-House Marketing Teams
Now that you understand what AI is, let’s take a look at why you can’t avoid implementing AI into your daily routines. Here are a number of ways that AI can be used to enhance your marketing team’s capabilities and produce more effective outputs, fast.
1. Data analysis and insights
AI can help to analyze large sums of data quickly, uncovering patterns and identifying correlations that may be harder for the human eye to pick up on. These can then be collated into actionable insights and recommendations, empowering marketing teams to make more informed decisions.
2. Personalization
Data can be leveraged to create tailored experiences for individual customers, taking into account their personal behavior, preferences and historical actions. By creating personalized content and offers, you can enhance their engagement and increase your conversion rates.
3. Automation
AI can be used to automate repetitive and time consuming tasks, such as email marketing, social media posting and content creation, freeing up the team’s time to focus on high-value activities such as creative and strategic initiatives.
4. Forecasting
Use predictive algorithms and machine learning to forecast future trends, behaviors and outcomes, allowing the team to anticipate customer needs and optimize their strategies accordingly.
5. Content creation
Use AI-powered tools such as Natural Language Processing tools like ChatGPT to aid in content creation and optimization, building personalized experiences and streamlining processes.
6. Customer service
AI-powered chatbots can be used to handle customer enquiries and provide real-time assistance. Insights gleaned from these conversations can also help with future product development – helping your team to always stay ahead of the curve in this competitive landscape.
7. Competitive analysis
You can also use AI to automatically gather industry market insights and data by compiling competitor information and giving your team a comprehensive understanding of the landscape. This can help to guide decision-making and product development processes and help you stay ahead of the competition.
Unlocking Data-Driven Creativity
So what does AI mean for humans behind the marketing campaigns? No, AI is not taking your job.
Instead, in the modern marketing world, there is nothing that consumers want more than messages that are targeted specifically to them - and AI can help with that by unlocking data-driven creativity for your teams Data-driven creativity combines data and insights with creative thinking, generating innovative and effective marketing strategies that are aligned to the needs and wants of the audience.
By leveraging data insights, marketers can create campaigns and content that resonate with the end user and inspire them to trust their brand’s message faster than ever before, building a stronger and stickier relationship between the brand and its audience.
AI is a key behind building data-driven marketing, allowing you and your marketing team to test and learn on a much larger scale than ever before. By leveraging data and analytics, you can gain valuable insights to make data-backed decisions and optimize your creative efforts based on empirical evidence, rather than guesswork.
AI Applications in Marketing
AI usage in the marketing spectrum isn’t necessarily a new concept, but it’s a trend that shows no signs of slowing down. Some of the biggest names out there have used AI to drastically improve their marketing strategies and results, including Netflix, who use AI to provide personalized recommendations for TV shows and films to their users, and Sephora, running a chatbot service that gives beauty advice and product suggestions to visitors on their website. Disney is even in the process of training artificial neural networks to mimic human brains and gain an understanding of what makes different stories appealing.
When it comes to finding the right applications for your business, there are loads of different AI tools available for marketing teams to take advantage of.
These include:
1. Customer segmentation
Understanding the different segments within your client base is pivotal to creating communications and campaigns that work for them. Tools such as Peak.ai, Glance and Clearbit are game-changers when it comes to dividing your clients up into groups according to their shared traits, whether that be by the products they use, their location or the actions they’ve taken with your brand.
2. Content generation
Since ChatGPT’s explosive entrance onto the scene in 2022, AI content generation has been at the forefront of many marketer’s minds. And while this may be one of the most well-known, there are plenty of other applications out there that offer similar services for teams that are looking for help with their content marketing strategies. This includes Jasper, Copy.ai and Copysmith.
3. AI video assistants
Video has long been one of the most effective ways to capture your audience’s attention, with short-form explainer videos taking a front seat for many brands’ content strategy. Unfortunately, video hasn’t historically been the fastest or cheapest way to communicate with an audience. But this is all about to change. PlayPlay has recently announced the launch of a new AI Video Assistant service, allowing users to simply type in a prompt for the kind of video they want to create and watch the magic unfold. With the ability to refine your request by adding filters that specify your industry, target audience, tone or desired language, you can have a professional highly-targetted video in a matter of seconds. Create an AI video completely aligned with your customer needs.