The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Marketing
Businesses focused on financial services or the healthcare sector have been using artificial intelligence to analyse data and create personalised experiences for over a decade. Only in the last couple of years, however, has the AI industry begun to establish its presence in the marketing and advertising space. With continuous technology advancements, AI will create enormous opportunities and change in the industry.
What is artificial intelligence?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is software designed to execute tasks that are traditionally associated with human intelligence. In platforms such as OpenAI, Google AI, or PerplexityAI, users can input text or ideas, and the AI generates content based on stored data. As the AI system evolves, it learns from this data, establishes rules, and draws conclusions. AI autonomously corrects itself and can provide multiple generated options.
What is AI marketing?
In the business world today, artificial intelligence marketing is a hot topic, largely because of the extensive amount of work it can help complete. For example, AI can be used for a variety of creative tasks such as reputation management, data analytics, public relations, EDM writing, social media listening, content generation, and audience segmentation and personalisation. AI can create images from scratch, assist marketers in identifying optimal ad placements for maximum efficiency, or personalise emails to boost response rates. Its performance improves as it acquires more data.
Marketing is a continually evolving and changing field, but using AI can help you stay ahead of key competitors in a dynamic marketplace. PWD shares that AI-driven marketing is set to drive 45% of the total global economy by 2030.
The benefits of AI in marketing
Using AI for marketing brings strategy and technology together. With this combo, marketing departments have the power to discover extremely accurate information on the overall customer journey and popular market trends.
AI and digital marketing go hand-in-hand because AI has the ability to suggest content depending on a viewer's preference, recommend what customers would like to see, write out long-form content, and discover prominent keywords that should be mentioned to pull in the right people. Brands that desire strong data-driven strategies need AI-powered systems to reach a high ROI.
Email marketing
An AI marketing strategy can enhance the effectiveness of newsletters and personalised emails, which can grow open rates and click-through rates. For instance, platforms like Phrasee automate the generation of compelling subject lines, Seventh Sense optimises email timing, Chat.GPT re-words concepts or copy, and rasa.io simplifies the creation of personalised newsletters.
Public relations
When a crisis strikes, online conversations spark like wildfire, so moving quickly to put out the disaster is crucial. Luckily, AI has the ability to help companies take quick action based on real data — it can spot online conversations during a crisis, see who is leading the public opinion, and what perception of your brand is being formed. AI can assist in the development of press releases and the rapid communication with online outlets.
Influencer marketing
We have now hit an era, where AI influencers exist. Digital designers have developed AI-generated influencers who use chatbot technology to be an entirely digital person. Three influencers who have grown massively in popularity are Lil Miquela from the US (2.6 million followers), Lu do Magalu from Brazil (7 million followers), and Aitana Lopez from Spain (311k followers). These influencers are driving significant engagement and sales through the brand partnerships and promotions they are doing.
Analyse data and automate tasks
AI helps marketers to offload mundane, repetitive, and time-consuming tasks such as data reporting or keyword searching so they can instead focus their energy on higher-value activities such as building strong client relationships or developing a strategic marketing strategy. When automation is added in, marketers can work more productively on campaigns and marketing projects. For example, Queries by AI Assist can help marketers to find a variety of suggested terms to include in their tracking. This eliminates a marketer's need to research terms that fit their target audience.
AI marketing concerns
With AI marketing, it’s easier than ever before to analyse data, automate tedious tasks and offer more personalised customer experiences. But there are definitely some important considerations to note as well.
The main issue that marketers may find with AI is that it lacks the same level of creativity and judgement that is normal of humans. The responses generated do not always feel as natural as is preferable, and AI models may have limited responses if they lack the data to support the task or question being asked.
Using AI for marketing endeavours can also create some ethical questions, particularly for marketing agencies working on behalf of different clients. It’s important in these situations not to rely solely on what AI generates, but to use it as a help to your own marketing ideas and expertise. If agencies exclusively use AI-generated content, clients may feel a little cheated, given that they likely could do many of the same things themselves. AI should be treated as a tool for time-saving and efficiency, but it cannot replace marketing experience and expertise from human minds.
Putting it to use
Overall, it’s important as a marketer to understand the impact of artificial intelligence in your industry so you can use it to your advantage while also remaining aware of its negative effects. AI isn’t going anywhere, and learning how to leverage its abilities will leave you better equipped for the future.
For a marketing agency that uses all available tools to deliver the best return for your business, get in touch with us. We’re Better Together.
