There are a lot of strong opinions about why should marketers be using artificial intelligence. There are also a lot of opinions about why they shouldn’t. Let’s start at the top with some general definitions and go from there.
What is artificial intelligence? Artificial intelligence is a field of computer science that deals with the creation of intelligent agents, which are systems that can reason, learn, and act autonomously.
What is marketing? Marketing is targeting your audience with information about your company and services that help them make the choice to buy from you. This includes online and offline campaigns to meet people where they are.
At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be an intersection between the two things. Marketing is about personalization and AI is not (according to the standard definitions). What AI can and cannot do is not well understood, especially in the marketing space.
Believe it or not, AI has been used in marketing for some time now, but its potential is still not fully realized.
Here are some reasons why marketers should be using artificial intelligence.
AI can help you personalize your marketing messages.
Yes, AI can handle personalization. With enough information about your audience, AI can help you start to sort and organize your potential customers. You can break down your audience into all kinds of segments. Once you have those segments, you can use artificial intelligence to start creating copy for these segments. AI can create variations of the same content so you have a lot of options to pick from. The caveat is that you, the marketer, should be responsible for final edits and approval. You know your audience better than AI will.
AI can help you automate your marketing tasks.
Think drip campaigns. Think automatic bidding. Think CRM tasks. You’re only one marketer with a to-do list that never ends. AI is really, really, really good at automating repeated processes. Instead of you spending your time creating endless reports you could use artificial intelligence to pull that data for you. Then you can get back to creating personalized content for your audience.
AI can help you create better customer experiences.
Have you ever interacted with a chatbot? That’s powered by artificial intelligence. The more information you give it, the better it can interact with your customers on your behalf. Using a chatbot can be a great way to answer basic questions that your potential customers have about your company. The experience is personalized based on prompts and keywords. Your potential customers get what they need and you don’t have to hire additional staff. You can also learn just how interested someone is in becoming a customer so that you can make your sales process more efficient.
AI can help you make better decisions.
The earlier points all point to this benefit. If you’re automating tasks and creating an experience that helps you collect customer data, you can make better decisions. You won’t get bogged down in spreadsheet purgatory. You’ll have the information you need at your fingertips.
Why should marketers be using artificial intelligence? Marketers should be using artificial intelligence to remove the barriers to scaling and reaching their audience faster. AI doesn’t replace human connection, it opens up the opportunity to give marketers more time to focus on relationship building. You don’t have to do everything at once, either. If you haven’t used artificial intelligence with your marketing before you can do a proof of concept. Pick one process to use artificial intelligence to automate. Measure the time and cost savings to see if it’s the right thing for you. If not, move on to something else. Stand up a chatbot and see if it helps your sales process become more efficient. The biggest issue with introducing artificial intelligence is trying to do too much all at once. Work your way up to using it in all the ways listed above.
|
Need help with your marketing AI and analytics? |
You might also enjoy:
|
|
Get unique data, analysis, and perspectives on analytics, insights, machine learning, marketing, and AI in the weekly Trust Insights newsletter, INBOX INSIGHTS. Subscribe now for free; new issues every Wednesday! |
Want to learn more about data, analytics, and insights? Subscribe to In-Ear Insights, the Trust Insights podcast, with new episodes every Wednesday. |
Newsletter
Podcast
