A computer doing your company’s marketing for you? Sounds almost too good to be true. Fortunately, it’s far from science fiction. In fact, you’ve probably been on the receiving end of computer marketing many, many times.
This is all due to AI marketing — or Artificial Intelligence marketing.
When many first think of Artificial Intelligence, they may immediately envision a robot in a space movie. In all actuality, AI marketing involves using various kinds of technologies, algorithms, and behaviors to reach out to, engage with, and convert new customers into returning ones. Some of the biggest companies in the world thrive off of AI marketing, including Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook.
But it’s not just big technology companies that integrate AI marketing to get conversions. More and more companies around the world — both big and small — realize the enormous potential AI has in not only getting more customers but also amplifying the user experience. In fact, the global AI market is projected to reach $267 billion by 2027.
As such, there are a few things to understand before jumping on the AI marketing train and reaping all of its many benefits. Let’s break down what the various kinds of AI technologies are, as well as what marketing uses are available.
What Exactly Is Artificial Intelligence?
In its most basic sense, AI is technology that uses human-like intelligence to perform various tasks. There are many different ways that AI can work, some of which you may encounter on a daily basis. It’s the technology that shows you what you should read, watch, buy, and use. There are a few specific AI technologies to lay out:
- Machine learning: This subcategory of AI uses algorithms to study and develop patterns from data to improve an experience without any need for human assistance — saving a lot of time and money.
- Real-life example: Think of your favorite streaming services, such as Netflix or Hulu. These applications study your viewing behavior to recommend movies or shows you might like in the future.
- Natural language processing: NLP, as it’s usually referred to, listens to, interprets, and manipulates language in both text and speech.
- Real-life example: If you’ve got Siri or Amazon Alexa, you’ve used NLP, as these machines listen to and perform tasks based on your speech. Alternatively, NLP is used in texting when your phone suggests certain words or phrases.
- Deep learning: Still relatively new in the world of AI, deep learning mimics the thinking and patterns of the human brain to perform human-like behavior.
- Real-life example: These come from technologies like self-driving cars, facial recognition, and virtual language translation. It’s the AI that’s most often associated with futuristic technology and sci-fi images.
If you’re wondering how consumers feel about these AI technologies, consider the fact that 62% of them are willing to submit data to be used by AI to improve their online experiences. Consumers are looking for more personalized, optimized, and convenient experiences that are targeted towards their needs and wants, and there are plenty of ways to do just that.
Benefits of AI Marketing
On the business side, the use of AI marketing takes care of the heavy lifting of marketing and offers you and your company many advantages that extend far beyond making technology easier. In fact, AI marketing can make your company and its employees run more efficiently and cost-effectively overall in the following ways:
Speed Up the Marketing Process
The marketing process takes a lot of time and productivity — two factors in business that are precious, as you likely know. AI technology and algorithms speed up company marketing exceptionally, cutting down the time your team has to spend writing and posting content, analyzing numbers and data, and engaging with regular and new customers alike. In this way, your company can spend energy and focus on bigger, more important tasks.
Cut Down on Marketing Costs
AI marketing can lead to impressive long-term results when it comes to saving on a marketing budget. Since AI analyzes consumer behavior and data, it knows exactly which kind of marketing works best with which kind of consumer, leading to an increase in engagement and sales. When you market on your own, you go through periods of trial and error, which can end up costing you greatly in the long run as you experiment with different channels and campaigns.
Cater to a Modern Audience
The modern-day audience wants a lot out of their online experience and has come to expect it from several different channels, including through email, social media, and personalized customer service. In fact, 60% of Americans surveyed place online experiences as more important than in-person ones. Moreover, 89% of Millennials believe brands should use technology as part of their customer engagement, no matter what type of business is involved. The modern consumer is a technologically advanced one that benefits greatly from many types of AI marketing.
Types of AI Marketing
While there are seemingly endless methods for implementing AI marketing, there are five standout ways to see the highest results. Choosing which AI marketing to pursue will depend on your product or service and what you hope to achieve with your business. Of course, combining various methods of AI marketing can lead to maximum results.
1. Advertising
Using AI marketing in advertising is how many big tech companies make their revenue, including Google, which makes 85% of its total revenue from digital ads. It works like this: AI will choose the best consumer for a specific ad by studying the behaviors of said consumer. The AI program does this by analyzing a consumer’s likes, shares, interests, search history, and prior purchases across various social media channels and websites. This is why you will be on a website and see an ad for something you may have liked or shared on social media earlier. AI will learn what you are most likely to engage with and offer that directly to you.
Another big part of marketing these days is the use of influencers or individuals with a wide audience and established credibility in a certain field to sell a product or service. In fact, one survey found that 90% of brands believe influencer marketing is very effective. Perhaps the hardest part of influencer marketing is actually finding an individual on social media channels who you believe has the influence and reach to sell your specific product or service. Thankfully, AI can take care of this hard part by searching through endless social media accounts to find relevant posts, hashtags, and comments related to your brand, matching you up with worthy candidates.
2. Search
Similar to the advertising process, AI is used consistently in search engines by tracking a consumer’s searching behavior and producing results that are most relevant and beneficial to them. AI will specifically monitor what a user engages with when they click on a website page. In doing so, search engines are able to rank top results that display when any user looks up a certain phrase. This is especially helpful to consumers, as they are able to receive higher-quality and fast results.
This technology can be incredibly helpful to you as well, as AI can create new content based on what keywords users are typing in and engaging with the most. This enables your company to keep up with and even beat the competition by ranking higher on search engines like Google. You can have some of the best products or services in your industry, but consumers are less likely to engage with them if they can’t find them. It’s more important than ever to remain relevant among the constantly changing pace of the internet.
3. Personalized Content
In today’s day and age, consumers want personalization; in fact, a recent report found 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase from brands that incorporate personalization than those who don’t use it at all or very minimally. Consumers want tools like personalized recommendations, trends, customer service, and website content such as blogs and articles. Personalized content is the result of machine learning and can be seen in plenty of everyday examples thanks to AI, including Spotify’s recommended music, Amazon’s recommended products, and Facebook’s personalized news feed, all of which show you information that is relevant to you.
Consumers also enjoy having the ability to set their preferences when they first decide to engage with a site by signing up for a service or buying a product. For instance, AI can offer consumers the chance to set their geographic location, age, gender, and communication preferences, which a site can then take and customize to meet the consumer’s needs. Netflix benefits from this type of preference by showing what shows or movies are hot in a particular area, influencing users to check out the content that has piqued the interest of other consumers nearby.
4. Customer Service
AI marketing allows for high-quality customer service with the help of technology. A very popular form of AI customer service is a chatbot. Chatbots are extremely effective because they allow for 24/7 customer service, instant responses, and the ability to tailor a user’s experience based on their needs. Rather than attempting to find the right representative to speak to through a website, consumers can simply type in a few keywords or phrases and be taken to exactly where they need to go, cutting down search time, resolving problems quickly, and allowing for quicker transactions.
Of course, customer service is not just limited to chatbots. If customers contact your company via email, AI can generate appropriate responses in seconds based on keywords customers use in their text. Moreover, AI is also able to send the necessary updates as needed depending on the status of an order or process and answer further questions consumers may have from there. This makes the process of customers solving basic or easily fixable issues much, much smoother.
5. Automated Tasks
Lastly, AI can cut down the time you and your team spend on regular tasks, such as sending weekly emails. By tracking what a consumer clicks through on a website — including what they “like” or “favorite” — AI can send curated, scheduled emails to consumers that are 100% tailored to what they are interested in. Alternatively, AI can utilize customer databases to send out emails during special occasions like birthdays or anniversaries to offer discounts on a particular day, increasing engagement and profit!
But it’s not just all about emails when it comes to marketing automation. AI can also take care of social media posting and engagement, which is especially important, as there are over 4 billion social media users worldwide. There are plenty of AI programs that can schedule out social media posts and blogs at certain times of days to leverage customer engagement when it’s most active. Even better, these AI algorithms will do the research on posts and provide you with feedback on how well they are doing without you having to gather the stats for yourself.
In Conclusion
As you can see, AI marketing can offer you and your company numerous benefits in terms of saving time, money, and headaches on how to figure out optimized ads, search behavior, and personalized content and services. Moreover, the digital world is ever-evolving and consumers are evolving with it, transforming their desires and expectations out of the online experience. AI marketing is the future of successful digital marketing, no matter what industry you are in.
Fortunately, there are plenty of options when it comes to settling on which types of AI marketing to pursue. Redstitch Digital offers a variety of plans that optimize your AI services at a competitive price — with a 100% money-back guarantee if your conversions aren’t doubled within the first year. Contact us today and get what you deserve out of AI marketing today.
