How Artificial Intelligence Compliments Internet Marketing Strategies

Today, businesses can no longer rely on traditional marketing strategies to stand out from the competition and drive revenue. As a result, marketers are investing in new technology and processes to remain competitive. In this blog post, I’ll share some information on just how artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the digital marketing landscape and how you can leverage AI in your marketing strategy. So without further ado!

What is Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial Intelligence is the ability of computers to “think” for themselves. Instead of being programmed to follow a specific set of instructions, AI machines can learn new behaviors over time through machine learning. This makes AI particularly useful for marketers because it can help analyze mountains of data, predict future trends and provide the best solutions for business problems. Depending on the specific use case, AI can be broken down into two types: – Narrow AI is an application of AI that specializes in one function. This is often referred to as “weak AI” as it only focuses on one area and isn’t able to transfer that knowledge to solve other problems. – A General Purpose AI, on the other hand, is an application of AI that can solve a wide variety of problems. General AI machines can learn new skills over time and are often referred to as “strong AI”.

How Does AI Help Marketers?

While the concept of AI seems like something out of a science fiction movie, marketers have been using it to drive results for decades. In fact, the first commercial application of AI was created in 1957 by two engineers who used a computer to calculate enemy trajectories during the Cold War. Today, AI has become a critical technology for businesses of all sizes. A recent study found that 80% of marketers plan on increasing their AI spending in the next two years. As AI technology continues to improve, marketers will find new ways to integrate it into their daily workflows to generate more leads and drive more sales.

Types of AI in Marketing

• To fully understand how AI is impacting digital marketing, it’s important to understand the different applications of AI and how they can be used in the marketing process.
  Natural Language Processing: Natural language processing is a type of AI that allows computers to understand human language and respond in a meaningful way. NLP helps marketers by allowing computers to read and analyze large amounts of unstructured data, such as un-curated blog posts, podcasts, and social media content. This allows marketers to uncover valuable insights and unearth actionable insights faster.
• Sentiment Analysis: Sentiment analysis helps marketers understand the tone of conversations taking place within blogs, social media, and review sites. By analyzing the language of customers and prospects, marketers can identify how people feel about their product or service. This allows businesses to quickly respond to negative comments, improve the customer experience, and increase customer retention rates.
• Image Recognition: Image recognition is a type of AI that allows computers to identify objects within images. This technology is very powerful in the marketing world because it allows computers to easily identify branded products, logos, people and more. In the past, marketers relied on human employees to manually identify images, which proved to be both time-consuming and expensive. Today, image recognition AI allows marketers to quickly and accurately tag images across various social media channels and product catalogues.

Which Strategies Leverage AI?

Now that we’ve explored the basics of AI and how it can be used to improve marketing performance, let’s look at some strategies that can be enhanced by AI.

• Content Creation: AI can be used to create content that is more relevant to your target audience. By accessing data from your website, email campaigns, surveys and more, AI can recommend the best topics to write about and create content that resonates with your audience. This saves marketers hours of research time and allows them to focus on creating high-quality content.
• Lead Generation: AI can be used to create personalized sales offers, generate more leads, and optimize email outreach campaigns. Sales tools like Salesforce, Genesys and Hubspot offer AI-powered features that allow marketers to create personalized sales messages, send emails at the right time and identify the best leads.
• Email Automation: Automated email campaigns are a proven strategy to generate leads and increase revenue. However, managing these campaigns and ensuring they are sent at the right time and to the right audience can be time-consuming. AI can help marketers create email campaigns that are sent at the right time and targeted to the right people.
• Predictive Analytics: Predictive analytics can be used to forecast future customer behavior. This type of AI allows marketers to identify patterns in customer data, such as buying habits and interests, to predict the best time to send emails, call prospects and promote new products.

Drawbacks of Artificial Intelligence in Marketing

While the benefits of AI seem endless, it’s important to understand the drawbacks of artificial intelligence in marketing. While AI can solve many problems for marketers, it also has the potential to create new issues.

• Lack of Creativity: One of the main issues marketers face when implementing AI is the lack of creativity. Computers rely on algorithms and programming to make decisions and while this can be extremely valuable, it also prevents AI from thinking outside the box. For example, if you set up a particular software to automate outreach to leads, you can’t be certain that it will be creative.
• Lack of Accountability: While AI can help businesses scale their marketing efforts, it also removes the human element. This means marketers can’t be held accountable for the decisions made by their software.
• Lack of Control: As we’ve mentioned, marketers can’t fully control how machines make decisions. While this adds a level of security to a brand, it also opens the door for issues like data breaches and fraudulent activity.
• Lack of Understanding: Another issue is that computers don’t fully understand human language. This can be problematic for marketers who rely on natural language processing to create content. If the computer doesn’t understand what you’re trying to say, the content won’t be as effective.

Bottom line

Artificial intelligence is the future of marketing and will play an important role in businesses for years to come. AI can help marketers automate daily tasks, send more personalized emails, create more engaging content, and more. However, AI isn’t without its drawbacks. It can lead to a lack of creativity, a lack of accountability, and a lack of understanding. These issues can be overcome by marketers who use AI strategically and understand its limitations and strengths. From there, they can create long-term success with AI by leveraging the technology’s strengths and overcoming its weaknesses.

You can learn, see, and experience more about AI marketing strategies from my mentor John Thornhill. Learn just how easy it can be when part of your strategy and have solid help and advice when you get stuck. Click here for a complimentary eBook, and Access

This is a guest post from Michael Taylor if you would like to be considered for a guest post please contact me.