Valter Klug, founder of Samba Rock, an ad & e-comm agency. 22+ years of experience working with global brands. Let’s connect on LinkedIn.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a powerful tool that has the potential to revolutionize the way businesses operate and interact with their customers. While some may fear that AI will replace human labor and creativity, I see the potential for it to be a powerful ally in improving efficiency, accuracy and personalization.
Throughout my 25-year career in marketing, I have consistently integrated new technologies into my daily routine. As the owner of a boutique agency, I rely on various tools to optimize my team’s time and make our clients’ expansion projects feasible.
AI has been rapidly advancing, offering new and improved solutions. I see it as an essential tool to study and understand in order to stay current with market trends and improve deliverables’ effectiveness.
AI-powered analytics tools have the potential to improve targeting, messaging and campaign effectiveness by quickly and accurately analyzing vast amounts of data, and personalization and task automation can enhance customer engagement and productivity.
Uses For AI In Marketing
Analyzing and Organizing Data
Like in other business applications, AI-powered analytics tools can help you quickly and accurately analyze vast amounts of data, allowing you to make more informed decisions about targeting, messaging and campaigns. This can help to ensure that marketing efforts are more effective and reach the right audience.
AI tools can especially help when analyzing large raw data from customer behavior data, such as website interactions, purchase history and social media engagement. It can then compile this into digestible insights and visual charts.
I believe marketers should also focus on collecting and analyzing data related to campaign performance such as click-through rates, conversion rates and ROI. When leveraging AI tools, it is important to establish clear goals and KPIs and train the AI algorithms with relevant data sets. Additionally, regularly monitoring and adjusting the AI models based on performance is crucial to optimize results over time.
Personalization
AI can also assist with personalization by using data and algorithms to deliver customized experiences and content to individual customers. AI tools can help with marketing personalization by analyzing large amounts of customer data to identify patterns and preferences, allowing marketers to tailor their messaging and content to each individual customer.
This can lead to more effective and efficient marketing campaigns as well as increased customer engagement and loyalty. I’ve also seen how AI can assist with the creation of personalized content such as product recommendations and email subject lines based on past customer behavior and interactions. This can lead to higher engagement and conversions as customers feel more connected to the brand.
Time-Consuming Tasks
Another area where AI can be useful is in automating routine or time-consuming tasks, such as email marketing, social media scheduling and lead generation. By using AI-powered tools to handle these tasks, businesses can free up their time to focus on more creative and strategic work such as developing new campaigns, crafting brand messaging and conducting market research.
Ethical And Legal Considerations For AI
However, it’s important to approach AI with caution and skepticism. Technology is still evolving rapidly, and there are many ethical and legal considerations to take into account when using it. For example, businesses must be careful to protect consumer data and ensure that it is being used in an ethical manner. There is also a risk that AI could perpetuate biases and inequalities if not designed and implemented carefully.
To overcome potential challenges with AI, I would recommend starting small and testing the technology in a limited and controlled environment to minimize risks. It is important to develop a strong understanding of AI and its capabilities as well as the ethical and legal considerations involved.
Transparency is crucial, with clear communication about how AI is being used and data protection. Focusing on diversity and inclusion is also essential to avoid bias in AI implementation. Collaborating with AI experts can ensure sound and effective implementation.
Balance Between Automation And Creativity
In my business, we understand the potential of AI in marketing and have integrated it into our work in a way that enhances our human capabilities rather than replacing them. By doing this, you can improve efficiency, accuracy and personalization while still relying on human creativity and intuition to make strategic decisions.
As an example, one effective application of AI is using it to review and revise presentation copy, saving time and avoiding mistakes that could damage your company’s reputation. Additionally, I have found that creating an AI instance that analyzes monthly campaign results against year-long data is incredibly efficient. Manually completing such a task could take days or weeks, but leveraging AI technologies can complete it in minutes.
I find that the key to success with AI is to strike the right balance between automation and creativity. AI can help to automate routine tasks and provide valuable data insights, but it should not replace the human touch in marketing.
AI creates based on an average of its input, resulting in copy that sounds similar and lacks the brand’s unique identity. While AI can assist in organizing ideas, human copywriters are still necessary to inject personality and relatability into creative work.
Copywriters who understand the brand’s tone of voice can ensure that the content resonates with the target audience and stands out in the market. After all, marketing is ultimately about connecting with people on an emotional level, and no machine can fully replicate that.
By striking the right balance between automation and creativity, marketing teams can gain a competitive edge and drive success in an increasingly complex and challenging business world.
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