media update’s Emma Beavon is on a mission to show you why AI will
actually be an accompaniment to marketing jobs.
Thanks to the film industry (here’s looking at you,
Terminator), many people have been programmed to think of AI as robots that will slowly steal our jobs and, eventually, take over the world. But this picture that sci-fi movies have painted for us is the furthest thing from the truth.
AI is actually here to help make people’s lives easier so that they can do their jobs more efficiently. Now, you may be screaming back at your screen, saying ‘but that’s how it all starts!’ — but just wait.
In the field of marketing, AI is becoming more prominent and is actually allowing marketers to spend less time compiling and analysing data and more time strategising and focusing on their campaigns.
Below are just five of the many ways that AI can complement marketers:
1. Auto-generated content is on the rise
Text produced by AI now is
usually easy to spot and can be pretty difficult to read as it comes across as robotic and lacking a human aspect. But, it has been predicted that by
2026, AI will be able to write essays passable for high school.
This innovation means that AI technology could be tasked with producing content marketing pieces as it will do so at a much faster pace than humans.
BUT, it is important to note that there will
always have to be at least a human copy editor involved to ensure that the content is up to standard and is written with proper grammar and the right tone.
2. Customer segmentation will be made much easier
Customer segmentation is the practice of dividing a customer base into groups of individuals that are similar in specific ways. For example, people can be divided into groups based on age, gender, interests and spending habits.
Consumers today have come to expect a certain level of personalisation when it comes to dealing with businesses. To keep up with the customer’s desire for personalisation, marketers need to up their game by improving interaction and delivering on new needs that arise.
Marketers need to deliver the right message, to the right person, at the right time, and customer segmentation is perfect for ensuring that this is done. AI systems can help marketers separate their customers into distinct personas and understand what motivates each group of customers.
With this information, marketers are able to focus on the specific needs of their audience and create long-lasting relationships between their customers and the brand.
AI technology can also help to map the journey of customers with the brand, which will allow brands to further categorise customers into dynamic micro-segmented groups. It can also predict a customer’s future behavior by analysing their past behavior patterns.
3.Social media monitoring will become automatic
Marketers can utilise AI as a way of automatically monitoring:
- how much time their customers spend online
- which social media platform they spend the most time on
- what they use social media for
- what kind of content their customers engage with
- which products get the most views
Once marketers have this information, they can create hyper-personalised marketing messages for customers.
AI technology will also allow for around-the-clock customer service with the help of chatbots. Chatbots are able to answer customers’ questions, queries or complaints. They also allow brands to communicate with customers on a personal level, in their own personal chats. This helps to optimise the customer’s experience, increasing brand loyalty.
Marketers will still be responsible for creating social media content and strategies, but AI will be able to ensure that it is maintained in order for marketers to work on other areas of their marketing strategies or campaigns.
4. Innovation will be faster
AI helps marketers innovate at a much faster rate. Thanks to better prediction systems using machine learning, it is possible for marketers to repeatedly test new ideas faster.
For example, if a company wants to see if a social media campaign would be successful, AI would look at insights such as what kinds of things increase traffic to the social media page and what kind of posts got the most engagement. These insights as well as the data collected on changing buyer behavior will be put together and analysed to see what works and what doesn’t. It will then look at the campaign idea and from the data it has analysed determine whether or not an idea will be successful or not.
Text analysis and sentiment analysis applied to social media data is another example of capturing insights that can be used to help drive marketing campaigns and future product creation.
This will then allow marketers to see which campaigns have the highest possibility of being a success. This will be a huge time- and money-saver for marketers.
5. Optimisation of ads
AI-based tools allow you to conduct the process of A/B testing ads in a way that saves time and money. With AI working the production of top advertisements, marketers are able to focus on other tasks.
For example, Google Ads now offers an AI-powered system of A/B testing. This system calculates which version of an advert performs best and then automatically serves that version up to future ad-viewers.
AI-powered technology could optimise thousands of micro-campaigns every minute and expand on new strategies that were already decided on by a human marketer, making the entire process much faster.
Marketers are able to retain this information on customer behaviour for future ad-targeting strategies and use the most cost-effective touchpoints to drive return on investment.
What experiences have you had with AI in your job? How has it complemented your work? Let us know in the comments section below.
AI is quickly becoming a major part of the marketing industry, which is why you need to know the terminology that accompanies it. To make sure you don’t get left in the dust, why not check out our Infographic: 10 AI terms every marketer should know.