What Does AI Mean For Your Marketing Team? A Beginner's Guide
When you hear the term “AI,” you may conjure up images of a faraway future when advanced computers run the world. But artificial intelligence is already here, and it’s working its way into industries across all markets — including marketing.
Software that can reason, learn, and act is already changing the way marketers work, and the release of new AI tools is accelerating the exploration and use of artificial intelligence.
We’re keeping an eye on the introduction and evolution of new AI tools to see what they mean for your marketing teams and ours. Let’s look at some of the ways we’re seeing marketers start to use AI to jump ahead, inspire creativity, and aggregate the massive amount of information available to us.
Types of AI Tools for Marketing
AI has been around for decades, but in the past year, the availability and power of AI tools have increased user adoption. More people have access to AI tools and are finding uses for them across all industries.
These are the types of AI tools marketers are using most.
Predictive Analysis: AI analyzes data to identify trends, create forecasts, and make personalized recommendations for customers. Examples include Pecan AI and IBM Watson Studio.
Chatbots: AI helps users solve problems by providing relevant information based on questions and prompts. ChatGPT is the most powerful example of an AI chatbot. (GPT-4 launched on March 14. It is so smart it scored in the 90th percentile on the Uniform Bar Exam.)
Text Generator: Users enter a writing prompt, and AI creates copy for blog posts, social media, email, ad copy, and more. Examples of AI text generators include Jasper and Copy.ai.
Graphic & Video Generator: Users enter a prompt and select an art style, mood, medium, and color palette, and AI designs one-of-a-kind graphics illustrations, images, presentations, and videos. Examples of AI graphic and video generators include DALLE 2 and Synthesia.
Code Generators: AI produces snippets of code that developers can add to larger code blocks on the backend of apps and websites. OpenAI Codex is an example of an AI code generator.
These are the best types of AI tools for marketers, but how can you use them?
How To Use AI Tools for Marketing
AI tools are only as good as your ability to use them. Marketer Ashley Hoff describes what it’s like to use AI. She says, “AI is comparable to using a calculator for math. You still have to know how to use it and the steps toward solving the problem even with the best calculators."
Marketing teams who know how to strategically use AI tools will likely find more success than those who don’t.
To get the best results from AI marketing tools, you need to know how to generate the best output. You need to know how to input prompts that direct AI to produce the best results for your goals, and you need to know how to tie AI-produced content and reports to your existing marketing plans and goals.
Here are a few ways you can use AI for marketing right now.
Research. Use a chatbot to conduct research by asking the chatbot to:
Provide stats to support a topic or position.
Produce a list of competitors for your brand (or another competitor).
Provide a list of customer hesitations for a specific product or service.
Compile a list of resources or questions related to your topic, product, or service.
Develop keywords and topics. Use a chatbot or content generator to provide ideas for keywords and topics to cover in your category or vertical.
Create an outline. Get inspiration for your content. Use a chatbot or content generator to create an outline or entire piece of long-form content to create an outline you can customize and edit.
Support your SEO strategy. Outsource tedious SEO tasks to a chatbot or content generator, and use tools to provide support for your existing content and ideas.
Scan your content and get suggestions to optimize for SEO.
Use a copy generator to write meta descriptions and titles for your page.
Generate schema markup for your webpage.
Scan existing content to create a list of related keywords.
Inspire custom graphics. Use a graphic generator to create a starting point for custom graphics for your website, social media, and marketing materials.
Improve your copy: Use AI content tools to boost the quality and effectiveness of your copy.
Get suggestions to improve syntax and grammar with a tool like Grammarly.
Update the tone of your copy with a tool like Quillbot.
Ask a chatbot to provide suggestions for improvement to your landing pages.
Create versions of your copy in different languages.
Optimize your ads by asking chatbots how you could improve your messaging to reach your specific buyer personas.
Discover content distribution channels. Submit your content to a chatbot and ask for recommendations of channels and platforms that might be a good fit for your topic.
Provide customer support. Use a chatbot to answer questions directly from your customers. Also, generate a list of customer FAQs from a chatbot and answer them in content in your marketing materials and on your website.
This is just the beginning. These are only a few examples of how you can use marketing AI tools. The power, application, and scope of AI’s impact on marketing are expected to grow even more.
So, Will AI Replace Your Marketing Team?
We don’t believe it ever should. It’s a support tool, not a replacement.
People are still needed to create an overall marketing strategy, connect a marketing plan to other company and departmental efforts, identify how AI can support your strategy, and review and modify the output of marketing AI tools to make sure it provides what you need.
Well-equipped humans should also check AI for:
Repetition. AI may deliver similar results for the same prompts. It isn’t as unique as the content that can come from a creative mind (for now).
Inaccuracies. AI copy isn’t guaranteed to be 100% accurate. While the content may sound authoritative, there is still room for error. You need a person to confirm and fact-check your content.
Bias. AI can pick up on the bias expressed in the media it was trained on. A person will be better at picking up on nuances in expression, tone, and context.
Plagiarism. AI pulls from existing media to learn. A person will need to confirm that the output is original, not infringing on the rights of existing content, and original enough to have value for search engines and users.
Brand Personality. While you can direct AI to use a specific tone or voice, a person will still need to ensure that AI-produced content matches your brand’s unique positioning, values, messaging, and approach to storytelling.
We Still Have a Lot to Learn
AI tools for marketing are quickly evolving. Right now, no one really knows how artificial intelligence will change marketing (and practically every other industry).
But we are testing, asking questions, sharing experiences, seeing where it can fit, and using it as an assistant to fill in a blank canvas and inspire creativity -- and you should too.
If your marketing team wants to start using AI tools to explore efficiencies and effectiveness, let’s talk. Contact SpotOn Media to see how we can help your marketing team stay ahead of the curve in a rapidly changing digital environment.