Three Ways To Use AI In Your Marketing Right Now

Amidst all the AI buzz, there’s a lot of “AI will…”. But what about the “AI is…”?

AI may not match the hype and fundamentally revolutionize marketing in the long run, but it’s already changed it. Whether you’re a hot startup on the rise or an established corporate enterprise, AI tools are now available to give you scale, efficiency, and even cut costs—a not-insignificant development in a rapidly evolving and challenging economic environment. 

There are several ways that marketers today are already using AI to bolster their efforts, increasing their output and digital footprint while keeping costs low. You need to consider leveraging AI, too—or else your competition will outpace you.

Generative AI and LLMs for copy and content

You likely know of generative AI tools like ChatGPT, DALL-E, and Midjourney. More specifically, these Language Learning Models (LLMs) quickly take prompts and return copy, images, video, and other media outputs in a flash.

LLMs can be scary, especially for people who have expertise in writing, design, video, and other creative pursuits (hi!). But the reality is that LLMs, particularly when used in a marketing setting, shouldn’t be viewed as a threat but rather as a tool.

• Ideation
  Supercharge your brainstorming by asking AI for variations of ideas or high-level research to give creative pursuits a head start and help maintain high outputs while avoiding writer’s block. 
• Social media posts
  Asking a generative AI tool for a bunch of social media posts can more quickly help you identify what you want to focus on–and what you want to toss out. 
• Product descriptions
  The same lightning turnaround can be applied to crafting taglines or, say, product descriptions. Spend a few minutes feeding a prompt with your ideas, and end up with dozens or even hundreds of options!
• A/B testing
  Similarly, when you design an A/B testing program, generative AI can help you deliver scale with your variants. You can more quickly develop the number of versions needed to run an effective, nuanced battery of A/B tests.

Always review your AI outputs to make sure they read and flow naturally, reflecting how people actually speak. Not only does this help you retain your human audience, but it also helps prevent getting dinged by Google. You likely won’t want to grab something directly from the LLM output, but you might get a close-to-final version that you can tweak to ultimately land on something more quickly than before.

While AI-generated content can provide a solid foundation, it’s important to remember that human expertise is still vital. There is no AI substitute for knowing your brand, your voice, and your offering. That, coupled with human ingenuity and creativity–and perhaps helped by the “extra hands” AI can provide–is how you ultimately craft content that resonates with your target audience.

Big AI for Big Data

Whether it’s the results of small qualitative surveys and focus groups or a massive set of data from a vast database, data is the lifeblood of marketing strategy. You can have the most creative, funniest, sexiest campaign ever, but if it doesn’t resonate with the right audience, it’s worth nothing. You need to measure impact and understand current trends in order to make smart decisions about what to do next.

Data analysis remains an imperfect science, but AI can help. AI can rapidly sift through vast data sets, driving through the numbers and the noise, identifying trends, and extracting insights, all to save time and get answers. These accelerated outputs help marketers focus their efforts on strategizing to leverage that data more effectively and sharpen the final messages seen by their target audiences. Process improvements drive better marketing that can effectively grow brands and businesses.

AI-driven predictive analytics bend time so that businesses can forecast future customer trends and behavior. Effectively a data-driven crystal ball, AI gives marketers the ability to create content and experience more proactively. Planning ahead for future quarters becomes more effective if you can get ahead of trends and help your brand appear at the right place at the right time.
Worried about security? Research and development are already well underway to preserve data security for AI applications while increasing their efficiency. You’ll want to vet each of your AI tools separately, just in case, but since this is such a popular concern, most AI developers address it head-on.

Improving SEO with AI

While many believe AI will change search forever, the jury is still out on exactly how. If you think about it, what has Google ever been if not a super smart machine that instantly answers your question–i.e., a direct precursor to today’s AI? 

What is certain is that search visibility is still key for marketers. Whether it’s on a traditional Google search or within TikTok or Instagram, how you show up is about as important as what you say when people find you.

AI-powered research tools can revolutionize SEO practices by adding scale to their insights and suggesting stronger keywords, optimizing phrases, and crafting compelling, SEO-friendly headlines and copy. By harnessing AI for SEO, marketers can stay ahead of the curve and ensure their content ranks higher in search engine results, ultimately boosting that crucial visibility and hopefully driving better engagement.

Current SEO-specialized AI tools can help conduct comprehensive keyword research, identify relevant long-tail keywords, and analyze competitors’ strategies. With that extra time and freedom, marketers can better create tailored content strategies that align with search engine algorithms, driving organic traffic, improving online visibility, and building brand authority.

In addition, AI-powered content optimization tools exist that analyze the intent and behavior of the user. These tools can help you understand what a user is really searching for by leveraging the semantic relationships between keywords. This helps a marketer craft their brand messaging to address people’s needs and desires in a specific context, ultimately showing how the brand and the business can provide value in their lives.

Change is inevitable; use it or lose.

AI isn’t some distant, far-off concept. It’s here, and it’s getting better seemingly every day. Particularly for marketers, AI is a reality that’s reshaping the industry today. 

The reality is that right now, we’re in that odd in-between phase between early launch and mass adoption—which presents a great opportunity for brands and businesses of all sizes. 

Even if you don’t want to dive full-on into AI, there are many tools available for marketers to get started with that won’t fully upend how they do things but rather augment and improve them. Many of these tools are available on a subscription basis, with teams of service experts on hand to help facilitate your needs.  

When it comes to AI and marketing, the future is now.

Be sure to check out the rest of our ongoing Branding 101 series for more insights and thought leadership.