Using AI In Marketing: A Beginner’s Guide
With the development of new technologies, more and more companies adopt brand new techniques and methods to boost their sales, attract customers, and, more importantly, build a solid reputation. This is why most of the companies that exist nowadays use AI – artificial intelligence to improve their business operations and guarantee the mind-blowing success of their company.
As they say, “nothing changes if nothing changes,” and that’s the main reason we have to be flexible enough to meet and adapt to the newest trends and changes that life serves us every day!
A few years ago, everything was handled manually, fraught with manual mistakes and human errors. Yes, those were harsh and ruthless times, where we were double- and even triple-checking everything to make sure everything was OK! Now, we don’t need to waste our time on such things: everything is perfectly handled by our new tech friend, AI!
So, it’s the AI who does the main job, and honestly, we can’t be more grateful!
What Is AI In Marketing?
AI in marketing consists of two major categories – AI and marketing. Since both of these industries have drastically changed the business world, it’s necessary to highlight their place and role in the industry.
The role of marketing is itself obvious. Without this magic tool that we all have used at least once, we wouldn’t have the chance to engage more customers, boost the company’s sales, establish trustworthy relationships and build a good reputation. So, it’s not even surprising that different branches of marketing, such as the SEO software market, are so sought-after nowadays!
As we said, artificial intelligence is no longer the new toy everyone wants to play with. This has become a true essential, a necessary thing! And to be honest, you don’t even need to put artificial intelligence through its paces, since everything is already crystal clear!
Long story short, we’re surrounded by tech products and AI-based systems that reduce the number of human errors and manual mistakes, engage more customers, relentlessly work day and night, and take all the risks you are so afraid to take yourself! So, the AI handles everything from the all-famous social media management and ends with complicated tasks and accounting-related topics. Impressed? Well, you should be!
Now imagine these two being combined! What a perfect mixture of two powerful elements that, after being blended, create something priceless and unique! And please, let’s not let a good opportunity in the form of AI marketing go to waste!
Already familiarized yourself with AI in marketing? Let’s see why you need to integrate it into your marketing strategies!
Why Brands Need to Incorporate AI in Their Marketing Strategy
There’s no need to mention that artificial intelligence has won the hearts of most companies for a reason! It’s not just a trend followed by millions, no! All the companies that integrate AI in their marketing strategy enjoy every upside and advantage that AI offers. So, if you’re ready to discover what AI does while being incorporated into marketing strategies, keep reading!
1. AI Makes Marketing More Human
Source: NL AIC
Despite all the efforts to prove otherwise, AI makes marketing more human, as ironic as that sounds! Yes, the main reason why you probably did not believe this statement was the already formed opinion about the online, digital world and robots that can cause chaos. We’ve all seen the apocalyptic movies about robots taking over the planet, but believe us, that is far from the actual reality we’re living in!
So, once you start integrating artificial intelligence in your marketing strategy, you will see it yourself that all the marketing-related efforts will look more real, more human, and closer to your customer. (Which is, by the way, the main purpose of marketing something!)
But how does something intangible like AI make marketing more human? Well, all the codes, predictive analytics, and processes that AI offers are created for a reason! This is how artificial intelligence works and how your marketing strategy becomes closer to your main target! Well, of course, you can still find Facebook influencers or send your products to people with a big audience on Instagram, but AI can also increase the effectiveness of these forms of marketing as time goes by.
Moreover, AI is known for its mind-blowing data analysis and accurate predictions, which means that your company will be able to perfectly target the audience and market your business to the right people in the best way possible!
2. AI Leverages Data to Improve The Campaign Outcome
The biggest advantage of artificial intelligence is its ability to find, process, and leverage data to make your marketing strategy even more efficient. This is why every worth-its-salt business invests in artificial intelligence, especially for marketing purposes.
Despite the advantages mentioned above, you may still think that campaigns can be effective even without AI’s help, but here’s the thing – AI makes everything easier and faster! In any case, if you don’t entirely trust AI, you are free to create a special team responsible for monitoring and keeping track of the AI actions and “decisions.” This way, you will have the best of both worlds and won’t have to worry about glitches or errors that can sometimes happen! This will also help you cover the ethical side of using AI for marketing that is often brought up.
Now let’s get back to the main topic – AI and campaign outcome. As we said, AI makes everything easier and faster, and what is more important, it does the job more professionally than any of us would!
By implementing AI, you won’t have to spend your time gathering data, investigating your customers’ behavior, analyzing all the collected information, and finally, implementing your marketing strategy. The AI itself will perfectly handle everything, and what is more important, it will surely achieve all the goals you set for yourself in your marketing strategy!
For example, if you have a dropshipping business and want to run a marketing campaign to reach more customers and double your sales, you can easily do that with the help of AI. AI will collect all the necessary data regarding drop shipping, customers interested in the products you sell, and other vital information to understand, detect and identify patterns, thereby improving your marketing strategy. More specifically, it will specify your target, understand what your buyers think and want, and finally, channel the advertisement messages right to the people who will be directly (sometimes indirectly) influenced by the campaign!
3. AI Improves Customer Support
Source: Aisera
Along with the all-famous phone calls and companies preferring VoIP phone service for better and cost-effective customer service, AI also positively affects your customer support system and has already become the new and the most efficient way of acquiring new customers.
Yes, artificial intelligence is not only used while launching a campaign and selling products or services. It is also a good way to improve your customer service, impress the buyers with your unique approach, and attract your customers in this way!
But… How?
- Problem-solving: AI does everything to solve the issues and inquiries of your customers, respond to their messages and perform a balancing act between you and your clients!
- Speed: apart from answering messages and solving problems, AI is also as quick as a flash! Did you know that according to statistics by FactoHR, nearly 70% of employees are overloaded with work? This also affects customer service, which is why companies need AI to save the situation ASAP! So, integrating artificial intelligence is a good start if you don’t want to make your customers wait and eventually get frustrated!
- Emotions: yes, AI feels everything your customer was going through while asking questions or leaving their feedback on your website. This makes it easier for AI to solve the issue using the right words and approach every customer!
For example, the Talkdesk cloud contact center platform widely uses AI for internal operations. Talkdesk competitors have implemented the same approach because of the reasons mentioned above.
4. AI will Improve Your ROI
There are many things that artificial intelligence can help you with: starting from simple customer service and ending with complicated calculations, everything is included! As Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon and the creator of an AI-based virtual assistant, once said, “because of artificial intelligence and its ability to automate certain tasks that in the past were impossible to automate, not only will we have a much wealthier civilization, but the quality of work will go up very significantly, and a higher fraction of people will have callings and careers relative to today.”
To better understand what AI does with your company’s ROI, it’s a good idea to start from the basics and discover the real meaning behind these three letters. Don’t forget to take notes or save this article for later: this part is truly important!
So, the acronym ROI stands for Return on Investment, which is a metric, or let’s say, a formula used by different companies to assess, estimate, and sometimes compare the profitability and effectiveness of the investment they once made. The name speaks for itself: with the help of ROI, you estimate the return you had based on your investment, easy as it is!
ROI can be improved in many ways: for example, if you’re sure that raising the cost of your product won’t harm the business, but on the contrary, will improve it even more, you can start from that. And actually, there are many other examples of how you can improve your ROI, especially when everything can be handled more efficiently together with artificial intelligence. The software will detect all the risks and opportunities, estimate them, and suggest you take a step. So yes, artificial intelligence can help you improve your Return on Investment – easy as A-B-C!
5. Improves Campaign Reporting
We’ve all been in a situation where we don’t understand the insights of our marketing campaign and what the showcased statistics mean. This usually happens with the new kids on the block who are new to all the marketing-related stuff and don’t understand how the machine works from the inside.
So, if you’re also one of those people who don’t understand how to read and analyze the insights of marketing campaigns, it’s a good idea to use artificial intelligence. Whether you need to check website ranking or followers demographics, it comes in handy. AI will make your life much easier since gathering data and evaluating the results is the main function of its non-human “brain!” This is when AI will collect all the information, assess your campaign’s success over a while, and show the bigger picture to you and your team.
You’ve heard that AI is everywhere and listens to every single word you say, and that’s partly true! Yes, AI may surprise you with ads or campaigns about baby products right after you tell everyone you’re pregnant, but that is just the result of gathering data and analyzing it. Now, do you understand how AI works and what it uses to be precise, accurate, and always right?
6. AI Will Analyze Existing Content for Opportunities
If you google the word artificial intelligence, the first thing you will see is the definition of AI. It is the development of computer systems responsible for different tasks requiring human interaction and the human brain. Yes, many years ago, certain tasks could be handled solely by a human being, but the situation, as you already know, has drastically changed!
Nowadays, artificial intelligence takes care of content writing, analyses the existing opportunities, and decides to perform this or that action. As you can see, we’re not alone in this intelligent world anymore!
Apart from this, AI also analyzes the content available online and searches for opportunities that will help you double your business’ success and reputation. It will detect patterns that can apply to your company, find connections and do everything possible to profit! So, if you have the chance to adopt an AI-based small business software, do it right away!
7. It Constructs Buyer Personas
Remember about artificial intelligence making marketing more human than we do? Well, fortunately, or unfortunately, the same situation is here! Artificial intelligence understands and reads people better than we could ever do, and that’s already a solid fact! As ironic as it sounds, we don’t know anything about us, but what is even scarier, AI does! So, based on the data and information AI has, artificial intelligence creates the exact persona of your target customer. It carefully collects all the parts of your customer’s body, and finally, after a thorough investigation, it has the picture of who you want to sell your products to!
Soon, AI will know where your customers live, what they like and what they don’t, what brands they wear, what they want for Christmas, and even which online podcast is their favorite. For example, if you’re selling electric skateboards and your target customers are young people, AI will research and send a campaign to all the people meeting these criteria. As you can see, everything depends on the nature of your business and its needs!
8. Creates Data-Driven Content
Source: Bernard Marr
Marketing is a diverse industry where every detail matters. However, it’s not only about building an email list or launching a campaign: things are more complicated than this! In other words, there are many other vital aspects to consider, especially content, which is the center of marketing itself! Remember when you decided to open up a business, build a website and make your company more visible on Google? Well, that’s when you had to generate content, take care of SEO optimization and handle all the other tasks revolving around content!
Now let’s get back to the data-driven feature. Content should always be filled with information verified and confirmed after hours of research and data collection. If you want to be the one who calls the shots in the market, you need data-driven content, and this can be easily done through artificial intelligence – your true friend and business partner!
Use Cases of AI in Marketing
Let’s accept that artificial intelligence is the one calling the shots. No matter how hard we try to justify ourselves by saying that it was our own decision to integrate it, it’s still the opposite! Yes, this is why we, the humans, adapt to the prevailing situation and start creating “jobs” for AI. So, it’s not a secret anymore that AI is everywhere: Just look at the latest trends: starting from simple calculations and ending with document signing software, everything has been simplified to our convenience!
It’s worth mentioning that AI doesn’t always replace employees, so it’s not as scary as everyone thinks! More often, AI simplifies the work of specialists by automating the process and making it look more professional and mature.
As you already assumed, AI doesn’t have only one function. It’s quite the opposite! The gigantic range of AI’s abilities allows companies, employees, and business owners to make the best out of a machine’s brain and succeed in whatever they’re doing. So, if you’re interested in how AI is used in marketing, read the next paragraph!
1. Personalized Messaging
At first, artificial intelligence was just a tool available for industry giants who could afford to integrate an AI-based system. Now, the machine-based industry has expanded, and almost everyone who wants to boost up their business can use it just with a single click!
Now, when thousands and millions of companies actively use AI, the messaging system is also invaded by AI and its brilliant intellect. This means that most of the messages or emails you get from a company are probably generated by their artificial intelligence. Along with this, additional tools such as SPF records checkers and validators have been created. What is even more interesting, all those sent messages are personalized – you automatically think that a real person, a real employee, has monitored your actions on the website and has decided to send you a message. AI comes to the rescue in key personalization parts, such as email signature management or unsubscribe buttons. This is called genius and strategic thinking in the form of AI, don’t you think?
Platforms like LinkedIn use AI to improve their users’ experience and make themselves more interactive. For example, if someone sends you a message, LinkedIn automatically generates possible phrases that you can use as a reply. So, if a human resource specialist finds you on the platform to offer a job and asks you to send your CV, LinkedIn automatically creates the following answers:
“Sure”
“I’ll send it in a few minutes.”
“Great.”
And this is only the first example of LinkedIn automation tools: there are so many things AI keeps under control! In other words, AI is slowly seizing the messaging channels industry, which is convenient and fast, and efficient!
2. Chatbots
Meet the first tool in marketing which is the chatbot! Please don’t be scared; it sounds much creepier than it is in reality. Chatbots are your best friends in releasing you of the laborious and intense work and those doing the unpleasant and time-consuming part of the job. It’s just software meant to perform a clear-cut task, a tool for computers that can imitate a conversation with a real human. What is good about chatbots is that it is not an application and shouldn’t be downloaded, updated and there is no need to reserve a special place in your phone memory.
Chatbots nowadays are considered one of the most advanced and ambitious and very easy and faster ways to ensure interactions in the customer service field. But, technologically, it’s just the logical continuation of the response system made possible due to the NLP (natural language processing.)
Chatbots are important to ease the interactions between human beings and various services to improve the perception of the experience with the business. They can perform customer service functions on social networks, apps, and websites, collect certain data, provide information, answer frequently asked questions, make online shopping and payments processes easy and user-friendly, provide information, manage reservations and appointments, etc. In short, if used properly, it can be an extremely useful tool for any company or brand.
As you’ve already seen, Chatbots have already become an irreplaceable part of every company’s journey. Now that its demand is extremely high, the market has expanded. Tools like Gupshup’s WhatsApp bot building tool significantly facilitates the process by introducing automation to your company.
Even more surprising, there are hundreds of tools that help our customers initiate a conversation with AI-based bots. For example, Gupshup’s smart messaging campaigns ensure smarter call-to-action links that motivate your customer to keep in touch with the bots and ask for further and additional details.
3. Smart Ads
The second AI-driven tool is the smart ads, those which can push intelligent advertising. Smart advertising, at its core, is a blending of essential technological tools to support the consumer through the whole sales process. So, what makes the smart ads so “smart”?
We all live in an era of smart technologies – smart homes, TVs, smartphones, and even smart refrigerators, then no wonder we have smart advertising as well. Today, those who advertise and potential consumers are treated in a personalized way, having tailor-made and targeted ads that can satisfy their particular interests. Unlike the standard and adopted advertising strategies, smart ads proved to be much more effective. These are based on actual data such as Instagram follower demographics, and they will help you bring in new visitors. Moreover, AI is also used for converting them easily to loyal clients, and the automation tools will allow you to use your time much more efficiently.
What Are The Benefits of Smart Ads?
Smart ads will be of crucial importance once you decide to start a marketing campaign, and they will save you time in the process and help you much more efficiently and intelligently use your financial and time resources. The main purpose of advertising is to raise awareness about the company’s products, educate the consumers, create competitiveness, and change the buyer’s consumption habits. And this is exactly what smart ads can do. There is a growing tendency to use smart ads due to numerous advantages they may offer, like eye-catching technologies and user-friendly and intelligent advertising, aiming to capture interest and reach the targeted groups through innovations and unpredictability.
4. Intelligent Searches
The next in a row goes the intelligent search. This is pretty clear, and the title speaks for itself. AI-strengthened search is the tool that helps filter data and makes the information search quick and easy. Intelligent search can find the requested info from anywhere and in any format. It is also often called AI search or AI-powered search.
So, what makes it so different? AI-search is equipped with tools such as identifying and recognizing human language, understanding the document’s structure, machine learning engagement, filtration of the field results, and classifying and categorizing the content.
Companies store their documentation and data using numerous sources, usually in unstructured and structured forms. According to statistics, employees waste 3 hours each working day searching for the necessary data and information. So, it’s obvious that your business should stick to intelligent search, which will save time, money, reduce the workload, improve business processes, become more productive, and drive your revenue increase by 30%. Intelligent systems ease and do your work much more efficiently, providing single, direct answers about your company to searching consumers. There is a quickly growing tendency nowadays to ease and make the search targeted and easy. Consumers now rely on intelligent services which can provide them with relevant results throughout the digital media.
5. Predictive Analytics
AI is used in many possible ways, and predictive analytics is not an exception. The latter helps companies, as the name itself suggests, predict the future and help business owners make the right decision. They say the best way to predict the future is to create it but is it true if YOU know what is more likely to happen in a year or two?
In other words, AI, equipped with data and statistics, explores all the avenues of the industry, integrates the historical data and other worth-to-mention statistics, and finally, provides you with an insight into your company’s and market’s “fate.” Even more important, AI-driven predictive analytics can positively affect your buyers and help you achieve your customer retention goals much easier. Many companies already use behavioral analytics software to enhance their digital customer experience: the market is diverse and includes AI-based programs like session recording software.
When you know exactly what your consumer needs, you immediately understand the nature of your campaigns and marketing efforts: this is how you find the need existing in the market and show that your company can fill those gaps! This way, you become the owner of your future and know which campaigns to create, what products to market, and how to change your marketing strategy in general.
The need for having predictive analytics under your business is quite clear: you want to know in which direction to move and which aspects of your company need some modifications. And besides, the more you know about the future trends and changes, the better you are prepared for them financially and mentally.
6. Customer Segmentation
As we have mentioned before, artificial intelligence has an impact on the nature of your campaigns. Yes, the campaign itself should be real, authentic, and more human, but what’s the point of following these criteria if your target market is not specified? Ideally, the campaigns should be well-structured and aesthetically pleasing, and destined for specific people. After all, what’s the point of sending generic ads if they don’t work and help you earn a profit?
Let’s remember that not anyone can be your segment. Every company has its target, its profile of a potential customer. So, if you’re not making sales, if your campaign doesn’t work, or your customers ignore all the emails you sent, just know that you’re doing something wrong!
Don’t know what to do? Well, AI is the solution you’ve been looking for! As you already know, it’s impossible to memorize all the data and information existing online, but luckily, AI can do that for all of us! It seems like we found the perfect recipe to ease our burden and get the desired information right away. Just think about it! Within just a few minutes, the information is sent directly to certain algorithms which, based on the provided data, evaluate the responses of your potential customers, do some mathematical calculations and identify who the perfect customer is for you! What is that if not magic, huh?
In any case, customer segmentation is only the first step towards effective marketing and a rich customer base. After creating the basis, you will have to deal with things more complicated than that, like creating a customer retention strategy to grow your brand!
AI Gives Professional Advice
Yes, that’s true! AI is already capable of giving opinions and showing a subjective approach towards various topics. Starting from the legal field and ending with advice on finances, AI can quickly render an opinion and help you find the answer.
It is also very useful in the marketing industry, where artificial intelligence analyzes your actions and campaigns and comes with a thorough conclusion regarding the efficiency of your performance in general. This way, you get a professional opinion from a non-human brain, which can truly help you get on the right track!
Challenges of AI in Marketing
It’s important to understand that using artificial intelligence is not just fun and games. Since the AI industry is relatively new to the market, there are still many problems that users are facing nowadays. But wait, no need to hit the panic button and give up AI along with its advantages: everything, including the challenges that companies encounter with AI in marketing, has a proper solution.
As we said, even the challenges caused by artificial intelligence are not the end of the world. You just have to know about them, arm yourself with knowledge and useful tips, and keep moving! But what are the challenges of AI in marketing, after all…?
- Data Privacy
Provided that AI is the new kid on the block, there’s still a lack of trust when it comes to using it, especially in data privacy. So, if you found yourself questioning AI, you’re not the only one!It’s already not a secret that artificial intelligence uses a vast amount of information and data to make its “decisions” and perform certain actions. Many people and companies associate AI with the risk of becoming the victim of identity theft or data breach, which is the main reason there’s hate towards AI!If you’re also in uncharted waters and don’t know what to think, just weigh all the pros and cons and make a decision. However, many people decide to protect their data just in case something happens, with the help of, for example, NTFS permissions and tools like NTFS Permissions Analyzer. So, if you also want to be protected, consider those options as well!When it comes to making financial decisions, businesses have more secure options rather than focusing on AI. Money transfers and transactions can be carried out more smoothly through cryptocurrencies. If you’re looking for a more secure method for business transfers, Litecoin is the best solution. As for low-fee transactions, you can consider Ethereum instead. Additionally, suppose you decide to switch your business transfers to cryptocurrencies. In that case, you can use a specific crypto portfolio tracker to always know about the price of your crypto assets. Even though AI is slowly entering industries like banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), where high data protection is a must, you still have various options for security.Must read: Start real-time conversations with customers via Conversational MarketingHere are some additional tips for protecting data in AI:
- Use quality data sets. A data set is a collection of data pieces that a computer can treat as a single unit. So, the collected data should be understandable for machines. While building AI, developers should focus on accurate and representative data sets. Since data sets are also used to store information on applications, they affect data privacy in general.
- Encourage user control. While using apps, AI can make certain decisions for users, and there are other types of choices that the user can make. First of all, users need to consent on which kinds of decisions AI can make for them. Secondly, users must know which data is being used and what choices AI is already making for them.
- Reduce algorithmic bias. Algorithmic bias can exist because of cultural, social, and institutional expectations. Mostly, it can be challenging for minority groups and women. Sometimes, AI is trained using biased data, which can result in data privacy issues essentially. You can eliminate algorithmic bias by cleansing the data, identifying resources, and evaluating performance models.
Most of the time, personal data can be used by apps or systems, so you need to make sure to increase data protection as much as possible. One of the methods to prevent this is by making sure you have minimized privacy challenges in the development stage.
- Organizational Buy-In The next on the list is the organizational problem. You may think that AI, an intangible tool integrated into the system, does not need any organization, but as the practice shows, it does! For example, companies that use AI try to systematize the working process between AI teams. This is a major problem because, for some reason, these teams are struggling with working together, even though the direction they work in is practically the same! In such cases, good training will not harm anyone! So, if you feel there’s the need to improve the internal system of your business, hire specialists and let them train your professionals!Another common issue that companies usually encounter is the lack of data that AI needs to work with. The more there is data; the better AI can perform its goals and help your business grow. Unfortunately, setting up fruitful conditions to obtain the required data is not that easy and not very cheap, which is why companies so often struggle. Yes, this also falls under the organizational part, but when everything’s perfectly set up, you can enjoy all the advantages of AI!
- Deployment IssuesYou have probably learned by heart that artificial intelligence makes our life easier and more interesting. However, we haven’t talked about the experience we have before actually integrating AI into our system. As you’ve probably guessed, the deployment of AI is going to be an uphill battle, and yes, if you want to enjoy the final result, you have to fight and win!The main challenge people face during the deployment process is the lack of knowledge and experience related to this industry. To understand how AI works and how it can be applied to your business, hiring a specialist right off the bat is always a good idea. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself dealing with real rocket science. A good specialist will take care of the deployment process and explain everything to you in great detail. Only then can you enjoy all the benefits AI offers, such as personalized messaging or improved product management tools.
- Lack of On-House Specialists As you know, an AI-based system should be created to integrate and use it within your business. When specialists already launch the product (AI-based software), anyone, including you, can buy it and integrate it into the system. Once you pay for AI, hire specialists and deploy it, you need to ensure it’s functioning properly. But here’s the thing: not everyone knows how AI works and is used in reality.Unfortunately, the ones who create the system won’t pay attention to your problems, while finding employees who understand the logic inside this machine is extremely hard. Looking for a project manager? Easy! Looking for a UX designer? Easy! Someone who can analyze web design trends and create a unique one for you? Same here! So, the question is, where are the specialists that will help you move forward with AI?
- Insufficient Budget They say the best things in life are free but are they? In terms of artificial intelligence, the word “free” is itself quite hilarious since integrating AI or creating a custom one for your business needs is a great challenge for your wallet!So, If you’re still in the startup funding process and are not ready to deploy AI, solve the financial issue first and only then invest in it! Believe us, once you do that, you will have the best time of your life, but before that, make sure you create a strong basis!Of course, there are cheaper versions for every AI-based software that anyone can buy, but please, weigh all the ups and downs, explore all the customer testimonials you can find about the company, and only then make that decision! In most cases (if not processed right), this ends with fraud, scams, and sometimes, identity theft if you allow them to use your data!
Conclusion
Source: Bernard Marr
Long story short, it’s time to start integrating artificial intelligence into your marketing strategy. We know that there are certain difficulties that you will face while adopting and using artificial intelligence. Still, once you look at the advantages this expert system offers, you immediately understand that it is worth it!
And honestly, implementing conversational AI in your marketing goals is one of the best presents you can give to your business! Why? Because, if the conditions are right, AI can do real magic and help your business accomplish things you’ve never dreamed of before! So, good luck with the integration of AI, and remember, everything will work out if you want it to! Get in touch with team Gupshup today to understand how you can kickstart your business strategies with conversational AI and conversational messaging.