How to Use AI in Marketing

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has revolutionized the way businesses approach marketing. Here are some different ways to use AI in marketing:

1. Predictive Analytics: analyze customer behavior patterns and predict future actions, such as what products a customer is likely to buy, what channels they are likely to engage with, and when they are likely to make a purchase. This information can help businesses tailor their marketing strategies to maximize ROI.
2. Recommendation Engines: analyze customer behavior patterns and preferences to recommend products and services that are most relevant to individual customers. This can help businesses increase sales and customer engagement.
3. Customer Segmentation: analyze customer data and behavior patterns to segment customers into different groups based on their interests, demographics, and behavior. This can help businesses tailor their marketing messages and strategies to specific customer segments, increasing engagement and conversion rates.
4. Chatbots: AI-powered chatbots can engage with customers 24/7, answering their queries, providing support, and guiding them through the buying process. Chatbots can also collect customer data and provide insights that can be used to improve marketing strategies.
5. Voice Search Optimization: AI-powered voice assistants are becoming increasingly popular, and businesses can optimize their marketing strategies for voice search. This involves optimizing content for voice queries, building voice-based customer experiences, and using voice search data to inform marketing strategies.
6. Ad Optimization: optimize digital ads based on customer data, behavior patterns, and preferences. This can help businesses improve ad targeting, ad messaging, and ad performance, resulting in better ROI.
7. Email Marketing: personalize email marketing campaigns based on customer data and behavior patterns. This can increase open and click-through rates and improve the effectiveness of email marketing campaigns.
8. Content Creation: content creation tools can generate personalized content for different customer segments based on their interests, behavior, and preferences. This can help businesses create more engaging and relevant content for their target audience.
9. Social Media Monitoring: monitor social media platforms for mentions of a brand or product and provide insights into customer sentiment and behavior. This can help businesses identify opportunities to engage with customers and improve brand reputation.

I Used AI to Write This Blog

I used ChatGPT to create everything above this section. I put in two prompts: “what are different ways to use AI in marketing” and “what are different AI powered applications for marketing.” There was some duplication between the two responses, which I eliminated, I rearranged the responses for better flow, and removed filler words for a faster read.

As a marketer and business owner, I have communication needs. I use tools every single day to help me achieve my goals and now I have more tools to choose from. AI isn’t the end-all-be-all and likely never will be. It speeds up iterations, first drafts, ideas to choose from, and analyzes data for better optimization. It gives me time back to better serve my clients with creativity, empathy, and the ability to adapt. No computer can replace those human features. I simply have more tools in my toolkit. In fact, I’ve been using AI for a long time but it’s slowly seeped into many of the services I rely on without me even noticing.

That said, I didn’t LOVE the answers I got from ChatGPT. It got me started but didn’t finish the job – that’s up to me. My clients and students could easily use search engines and AI to help give them answers to their questions and they do. They come to me when they need to make sense of the conflicting information and research, when they want to discuss their ideas, and when they need help making decisions based on their values. There’s a time for the automated service provider and a time for the human.

Ways I Want to Explore Using AI in My Work

I’ve just begun to scratch the surface because, of course, everything is new but here are some ways I’m thinking of using it: first drafts of blogs especially when I’m experiencing writer’s block (you are reading the final draft of AI enhanced writing), crafting a series of social media posts with a story arc, creating ads with professional visuals and copy optimized to convert, and mock-ups for clients to show them what I think they can do with their social. As I continue to research, as well as testing the offerings, I’ll think of more ways to use it but this is my appetizer round.

AI Tools to Supercharge Your Marketing

Take a look at the marketing suite of tools you’re already using. We grow comfortable with what we have and may not have realized that they’re getting continuously enhanced with AI features. Check out what your current tools do and I’ll bet there’s some nuggets of gold you’ve never seen in there.

I’m not sponsored (I never am) but below are some tools to wet your whistle. While I haven’t tested most of what I’ve listed below, these are some categories that are easy-to-start areas to try using AI in your process. Of course this isn’t an exhaustive list but tasks you need and the tools I’ve shared are preferred in the category based on my product feature research. Take them for a whirl!

Website – Build a website in seconds with Durable or Hostinger. Keep in mind that whatever you build will still require editing, customized copy for your brand, and organization in your messaging. Think of it like a boxed cake mix – you still have to bring some ingredients and put some effort in. But wow, are these fast! (Want a referral to a trusted website designer? Reach out to me and I’ve got some amazing humans to recommend!)

Branding – Brandmark is a good one to test. Put in some basic information and have a logo designed and placed on a variety of assets in mere moments. Does this replace a graphic designer? No. Is it lickety-split fast to get you off the ground so that you can focus on why you’re in business? Yes.

I love my graphic designer because she has the artistic sensibility, business training, and knowledge of my brand. She can take a simple stick figure drawing and make my vision come to life. I can’t explain the joy I get from commissioning an artist to create something unique to me with my values and personality embedded in a piece of art.

Writing – Grammarly, Jasper or Surfer are all tools that will help in this process. Use them to help you get paragraphs on the page, clean up your clunky grammar, or write with search engine optimization in mind. We all need an editor or scribe and these tasks are as old as writing itself.

Social Media Post Creation – Canva, ChapGPT, AutoDraw by Google are all great tools to test in this space. Many of you already use Canva (I use it daily, have for years, and pay for Pro) and it continues to add features that enhance what marketers need without being too complicated. ChapGPT is easy to test and find value in with a very short learning curve. AutoDraw I’m looking forward to playing with to gain inspiration since my favorite way to visualize is stick figure drawings.

Ad Creation – Now this is the area where we could all use some help and I like Ad Creative AI. This is a high demand area for smaller businesses since most ad firms only work with companies with a large budget which means there’s a big gap in solutions for the little guy. With 100s of variations, text and headline writing, each ad tailed for the platform it’s to be delivered on, increasing click-through rates – I can’t wait to try this one!

Be Mindful

AI won’t solve all your problems and it won’t fix a broken business model. AI has speed on it’s side but it still needs guidance and an editor. Never push out AI created content without thorough vetting for accuracy and ethical usage.

Possibilities

I don’t want to skim over the fact that all of this may make you nervous. I wrote this blog to introduce you to ways you could lighten your task load using artificial intelligence tools. Personally, I’m using the mantra these days “Elevate. Possibility. Potential!” to keep me in a growth space rather than retreating to a place clouded by fear. I encourage you to put on your curious pants and try something new or outside your comfort zone. You don’t have to use any of these tools long-term but I’m confident that you’ll understand more about how to use AI in marketing and what your needs are after you’ve done some exploration. Have fun!