In this article, you’ll learn the top applications of AI in marketing strategies.
No matter what industry you operate in, automation and artificial intelligence (AI) use have dramatically increased in recent years. It’s not just increased adoption of technology we have seen but also advances in the complexity and efficiency of AI-powered systems and tools.
By 2027, the market for AI is expected to be worth over $270 billion.
Of course, AI may come in many different forms, from intelligent robots being used in manufacturing to companies implementing a multichannel inventory management system for stock and warehousing control. Your digital marketing campaigns can benefit from a variety of use cases for integrating AI marketing, and each of these use cases has its own advantages.
One area where we are seeing AI making a real difference is in marketing.
One such example is AI writing assistants, including content intelligence platforms that assist content creators in crafting more relevant material for their businesses.
How can AI help with your digital marketing strategy, and what areas of your strategy should you be considering using it in? What AI-powered applications will make your marketing teams’ lives easier and allow them to focus their efforts on more complex tasks?
We look at 6 applications that could help your team become more efficient.
Top Applications of AI in Marketing Strategies
There are AI-powered applications that can fit with almost any aspect of your AI marketing strategy. However, while most marketing teams may follow similar models, their needs can drastically differ according to their business type and needs.
The use of AI was once thought to be a marketing skill that could only be utilized by established, successful companies. However, small businesses and consumers can leverage machine learning and AI in their modern marketing initiatives.
Deciding which applications best suit your own needs is something only you can decide, but the following AI applications can give you some ideas.
1. Targeted Ads
A constant issue that marketers face is ensuring that ads are relevant to the people who see them. This can be especially true when you have a diverse demographic base who want to see ads that speak to them alone.
For example, the marketing of a virtual PBX phone system may want to target everyone from a small business owner to the board of a large corporation.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning combined with deep learning makes it possible to analyze massive amounts of customer data in real time. That can include everything from previous transactions to what landing pages they spent the most time on.
That analysis can then identify not only the customer’s likes but also where they are in your sales funnel. By being aware of the customer journey, it can then target that customer with content that is relevant to them and the stage in the buying journey they are at, thanks to predictive analytics.
2. Retargeting
You know from your marketing data that you have a significant number of customers who may have expressed interest in your products or spent some time browsing your website but who never progressed to an actual purchase. That may be down to different reasons, from your pricing to a complicated checkout process.
Retargeting these lost opportunities can be a major tactic for many marketing teams. It can also be a major boost to your conversion and sales rates.
Through the use of ML and learning algorithms, AI can help identify the most likely retargeting prospects and can differentiate between customers who were just browsing and those with potential buying behaviors.
3. Content Curation
Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed by content curation? Omnichannel approaches may mean you need to think about curating content across multiple platforms and channels, not to mention the fact that different platforms may have different rules and needs.
Content curation can present a huge and time-consuming hurdle to marketing teams. Abdicating your curation responsibilities can not only free up your time, but it can also make the process more efficient too.
Using artificial intelligence means that customers will engage better as content is targeted at them and can also be personalized. AI systems can also recognize the importance of SEO and brand awareness and can help meet your targets in those areas too.
Many marketers and content creators are now using AI SEO platforms to optimize their written content for search engines. These tools, alongside the best AI writing tools, make a big difference in the speed at which blogs and websites publish content.
However, as one of the top applications of AI, generating AI content is not as simply as pressing a button. These tools are only assistants, and your human intelligence must play a big part also in your content marketing.
4. Personalization
You already know how important personalization is when it comes to marketing. Still, it can be a long, lonely road trying to implement an effective level of personalization without some help.
Using artificial intelligence to help with your personalization tactics allows you to tailor more content to your customers and thus increase engagement and the likelihood of a sale.
For example, suppose a customer has previously expressed interest (or bought) products or services in the unified communications area. In that case, your AI system will identify them if you have a marketing campaign offering a free trial of a phone system in the cloud.
When your AI system knows a customer’s interests and previous behaviors, then it can personalize marketing material to fit those factors.
5. Chatbots
While you may initially think of chatbots as conversational marketing tools, the reality is that they can also be great marketing tools. Depending on the complexity of your AI bot system, you can program them to have conversations with customers and have them guide the customer to products you may be focusing a campaign on.
Chatbots can be very complex and use ML and NLP (natural language processing) to constantly ‘evolve’ and be able to hold more involved conversations. Maybe the customer’s query is about cloud gaming solutions, and you have a current campaign on a particular product. If it meets their needs, you can have your chatbots guide the customer to the product you are currently promoting, increasing customer experience.
6. Emails
Email marketing is one of the top applications of artificial intelligence in regard to segmentation and user rating and remains an effective marketing tool. In fact, 77% of marketers reported increased engagement over the last 12 months.
However, it can be a time-consuming exercise, especially when you consider the importance of segmenting your email list into groups with similar interests or buying behaviors. You need to separate customers into distinctive groups.
An AI-driven email tool can take your marketing game to a whole new level. It can analyze your data and your email list and segment the groups for you based on different aspects of their interactions with your organization.
It can also add that all-important personalization to your marketing emails and can lead to significant improvements in your email CTRs (click-through rates).
Why is Artificial Intelligence Important in Marketing?
The most obvious benefit of using AI systems in marketing is that they can handle repetitive tasks that typically eat up too much of your team’s time, thus freeing your human staff to focus on other tasks.
However, the benefits and importance of AI go far beyond simple aspects regarding time. Implemented properly, AI can make a real difference in results and efficiency.
Marketers need to wear many hats and have diverse skill sets; one day, you may be focusing on SEO copywriting, and the next, you may be working on a new social media campaign. It often feels like there are not enough hours in the day, so AI is an ideal solution to carry out many of those tasks that seem to take up much of your time.
Within the field of marketing, AI technology not only makes marketers’ jobs easier, but it also lets them take their creative talents and connect more easily with their intended audience. It can help deliver messaging at the right time and in the right place but also add a degree of personalization that would be virtually impossible to achieve manually.
You can already see how efficient AI is in helping an organization communicate with its customers; virtual contact centres use lots of different AI systems to improve their performance.
Consequently, it is also clear that AI may enhance your ability to engage with people, whether it is through direct communication or marketing communications.
Another huge benefit of working with AI is how efficient such systems can be at collecting and analyzing data sets, something else that can make your job far easier. AI can help marketers enter the world of data science without them having to fully understand the intricacies of that subject. That means they can better adjust their tactics to meet the needs of what the data says.
One important thing to remember is that, much like your marketing tactics, AI systems cannot remain static. Just as you may adjust messaging and tactics to meet changing needs, so your AI systems may need occasional tweaking to also meet any changes. It’s not just about changing your own work, it’s about understanding how your AI system may need to change too.
The Takeaway
This resumes our list of the top AI applications digital marketers can use in their marketing initiatives.
Experienced marketers have extensive toolboxes. They have the knowledge to carry out a wide range of marketing tactics, from promoting a business on social media to knowing how to launch a branded blog.
You can think of AI as that amazing new power tool that makes your toolbox so much better and more useful.
Your marketing efforts can cover many areas where AI can help you do the job better and more efficiently. It can help with anything, from more streamlined and dynamic emails to better video marketing. How well AI can fit within—and benefit—your marketing strategies will depend on the needs of your organization and what areas you focus on.
AI is here to stay. And you will see rapid advances in its use and levels in coming years. Understanding how AI can benefit your marketing efforts is only the first step. With ML and NLP, and with the increased ability to integrate with other systems and apps, it is an essential tool to consider adding to your marketing arsenal.
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