Artificial intelligence for marketers

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has blown up in the past few years and is quickly starting to take over the world of business marketing. From digital assistants like Alexa and Google Home to Siri and search algorithms, AI allows consumers to access the information they want quickly and efficiently.

It’s predicted that the world of AI is only going to continue to grow until it’s incorporated into most aspects of our business and personal lives. Biz Journals anticipates that “62% of enterprises will use AI technologies by 2018”, which has increased from the 38% of businesses that were using it in 2017.

Freeing up marketers’ time

Some are afraid that AI is going to take jobs away from marketers by performing tasks usually carried out by humans, but this isn’t the case.

Rather, AI is able to quickly carry out a lot of the time-consuming, tedious tasks previously required by small business owners so that their time can be freed up to focus on more in-depth tasks that require a human’s level of personalization.  Let AI handle tasks like recommendations and customer service so that marketers can focus on being creative and developing imaginative, engaging campaigns – something that AI is definitely not capable of doing.

Customer service is one area in which AI – specifically chatbots – should absolutely be used. In 2018 consumers expect to have their questions and concerns answered immediately, any hour of the day and day of the week, and this is a demand that humans can’t possibly meet, but robots can.

In addition to freeing up time for marketers, AI is accelerating marketing and sales. Ama.org explains that by “giving robots access to [your] brand you’re giving consumers the same access”.  Embrace this thought and give AI opportunities to expand on your marketing efforts. Consumers are using AI in their search efforts in order to find what they’re looking for faster than they ever have before. Marketers need to make sure their content is optimized to meet these demands.

AI will be able to increase brand sophistication by analyzing copious amounts of consumer information. It uses machine learning to anticipate what a customer wants and needs faster than any human is able, and in turn this increases brand engagement and sophistication, and promotes customer loyalty.

The fact of the matter is that humans just don’t have the capability to access and analyze the huge amounts of customer data that AI can go through in a matter of seconds.

Data analysis

In order to truly reap the benefits of AI, it must be used correctly. AI should be used to deliver highly personalized and relevant messages. Consumers don’t want to feel like they’re being marketed to by a robot, even if that is the reality of the situation.

Generation Y and Z consumers want “a truly personalized experience [on websites] and within messages”. In the past, businesses could develop big marketing campaigns that appealed to huge amounts of people and they were wildly effective; but those days are gone.

Chatbots and virtual assistants are ‘the face’ of AI marketing and should be used accordingly. Although AI in marketing is more than just digital assistants, products like Alexa and Siri get most of the attention from businesses and from consumers.

CIO.com makes a good point in saying this could potentially be because these assistants act like humans, and even though consumers love computers and all their capabilities, they still want to feel like they’re interacting with a human. Remember this when crafting your AI marketing efforts and make sure your campaigns have that human element to them.

Also keep in mind that search queries using digital assistants are only supposed to increase in the coming years, so make sure your mobile site is optimized to meet this demand.

Social media marketing

AI can also be used in social media marketing. It’s already been used for targeting advertising, but AI can do so much more in the field of social media to help followers connect and engage with brands.

AI can quickly scan through social media content, data, and user history to help marketers create more relevant content.  Facebook uses AI extensively to do things like automatic face tagging in photos to determine which stories show up in a user’s newsfeed.

Despite how much better AI can make the user experience on social media platforms, many companies are still hesitant to incorporate it into their own social media marketing efforts. Hopefully this article has shown that instead of taking away jobs from marketers, AI will be able to free up some time so that they can focus on tasks that need a human element to them instead of drowning in data and mundane chores.

 

Have you incorporated AI into your business marketing plan?  How do you anticipate AI impacting your company’s marketing goals?  Comment in the section below!  Also, for more information on how AI is projected to impact marketing in the future, check out this article by Search Engine Watch.

 

Amanda DiSilvestro is a writer for No Risk SEO, an all-in-one reporting platform for agencies. You can connect with Amanda on  LinkedIn, or check out her content services at amandadisilvestro.com.

source https://searchenginewatch.com/2018/07/16/artificial-intelligence-for-marketers/