How AI Is Changing the Way We Do Marketing

Self-driving cars. Alexa and Siri. Robots. Robot vacuums. These are all well-known examples of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and whether you know it or not, it’s rapidly changing how we live our daily lives. So much so that the University of Florida has committed to becoming an AI university on the heels of a $70M partnership with the graphic processing unit company NVIDIA. 

AI also impacts how we market, and it could have lasting effects on your business’s future. In fact, according to TrueNorth, a staggering 61% of marketers already say that AI is the most crucial component of their data strategy. Read on to learn more about how AI is shaping the future of marketing and how you can effectively leverage it for your business. 

AI Marketing Benefits 

The great irony of AI is that it is a technology that actually helps build more personal relationships between companies and consumers. It does this by analyzing data to anticipate trends and make consumer behavior predictions. Then, a company can send personalized, strategic marketing messaging that meets customers wherever they are in their buyer’s journey. 

If you’ve ever shopped online and seen the “You May Also Like” feature underneath the item you’re browsing, that’s AI. Just a few other examples of marketing AI include the following. 

• Netflix recommended movies and tv shows
• Google, Instagram, and Facebook retargeted ads
• Behr’s personalized paint recommendation tools
• Electronic billboards
• “View it in your space” AR features on shopping websites

Unlike other forms of technology that have to be told to perform certain functions, AI tools such as chatbots evolve independently without reprogramming, making them invaluable for marketing purposes. 

Automation

One of the biggest advantages of AI is speed. AI is not the only data collecting marketing tool but where AI shines is in how fast it can perform marketing tasks and allow marketers to more effectively manage campaigns. That’s because, using real-time data, marketers can make informed, objective decisions to adjust campaigns as needed sooner rather than waiting for the campaign to end to assess its success. 

In addition, AI can also help marketers research and create posts as well as add relevant hashtags to drive engagement further. This helps improve ROI because campaigns and marketing efforts appeal to more customers, guiding them more easily through each stage of the sales funnel. 

How to Use AI in Your Marketing 

Budget and Targeting

AI can help you optimize your ad spending and how you target your audience. AI takes your spending data and analyzes how well it has performed, then determining what changes will help your ads perform better — on several complex campaigns simultaneously. AI puts relevant ads in front of the appropriate consumer groups, minimizing the chances that consumers will immediately close out ads because they don’t apply to them. 

Another way AI has infiltrated marketing is through targeting implementation in digital platforms, such as Google Analytics’s GA4. Launched last year, this AI-focused tool helps marketers use AI insights to fill in the data gaps left by increasingly privacy-centric policies. 

Buyer Personas

AI helps marketers get to know their current and potential customers to direct the right messaging to them at the right time. While manually creating buyer personas takes time for marketers, AI uses collected data about customer behavior, past interactions, and interests to target relevant audiences. 

Content Marketing

For 53% of marketers, content marketing is their top priority. AI can already be used to curate and generate basic content, but as it continues to evolve, its capabilities could shift to independently drafting whole pieces of content. Even better, AI allows marketers to create long-term content strategy maps. 

Chatbots

We touched on the value of chatbots to keeping your brand in front of your audience in this blog. AI-enabled chatbots allow customers to engage with your brand any time of day or night to have their questions answered. This means that even as your company sleeps, it’s interacting with potential customers and forming a connection that can help them turn into actual customers. 

The Value of Human Touch

While AI can benefit your marketing efforts, customers still connect most with emotive storytelling and human connection. So, before you put AI to work in every single aspect of your marketing, remember that it’s a valuable tool that can assist you in your efforts to reach customers, but it shouldn’t be your sole approach. 

For more digital marketing insights, contact our team at PHOS. We’re happy to share what we’ve learned from helping hundreds of businesses like yours over the years leverage the right tools at the right time to help them grow the right way.