Technology has taken over every aspect of our lives, right from the way we travel to how we shop. Hence, it’s no surprise that technology has made its way to the way brands market and communicate with their customers, especially AI. In fact, according to a study published in the PwC Consumer Intelligence Series, 54% of executives say AI solutions implemented in their businesses have already increased productivity.
AI has made tremendous strides in marketing, especially content marketing. Whether it’s marketers finding more relevant content, or customers getting the benefit of personalized content, AI has caused a significant shift in the way businesses interact with their customers. The synergies between AI and content have been spread so far and wide that the conventional approaches that were prevalent just a couple of years ago are now considered ineffective.
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VISIT THE HUBThe synergies between content and AI
With the growth of Big Data and AI, a few marketers quickly found an opportunity to beat the competition and use the data to create personalized content, which connected with relevant customers. As this strategy found tremendous success, more marketers started providing customized content to customers. As a result, customers now want, if not expect, this type of content from brands. Due to this, marketers need to embrace approaches that make use of AI and machine learning technologies to stay ahead of the game.
The banking industry is an excellent example of an industry that has fully leveraged the benefits of AI. This industry has used AI in its customer-facing processes on their websites by creating unique machine-based assistants who address customers’ frequently asked questions and other common banking needs.
Another great example that depicts the synergies between content and AI are search engines. Google Now, Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri are popular voice assistants that make use of this advanced technology by finding results on search engines that are customized for voice search.
The benefits of AI in content marketing
While AI has already paved its way into content marketing, the question remains, is it as useful as advertised? The answer is a big yes! In just a few years since its introduction in the content marketing industry, AI has already proven its worth. Here are a few benefits that marketers can leverage from adopting AI.
Enables personalized conversations with customers
A study published by Salesforce showed that 52% of consumers are more likely to switch to a different brand or product if they don’t receive personalized communication. Mass messages are considered spammy and have become the primary source of consumer disengagement. Hence, it’s only natural that brands that don’t provide personalized content to customers will lose out on a considerable amount of the market potential. AI gives you the benefit of understanding what customers are expecting, their likes and dislikes. This allows you to have a personalized conversation with your customer, thereby strengthening your bond and increasing customer loyalty.
Enhances marketing campaigns
One of the main challenges that content marketers face is the uncertainty of how audiences perceive their content. As they are unable to gauge their audience’s reaction, they can’t determine which areas need improvement for future campaigns.
Artificial Intelligence has solved this problem by providing data-driven feedback and insights to content creators. With the help of this data, content marketers can understand which areas of their campaigns need improvement and make changes accordingly. By harnessing the power of AI while launching marketing campaigns, content creators can yield greater success as they know more about their customers and can customize each experience.
Pushes relevant content to the right audiences
It’s imperative for you to market your content to the right audience, people who are looking for, or can use what you have to offer. And AI helps you achieve exactly that. Through the audience data provided by this technology, you can automate and optimize your customer’s experience with great precision. This data comprises of an infinite amount of details, including age, income bracket, personal interests, geo-location, time preferred to shop, time preferred to browse content online, etc. With the help of this data, marketers are more equipped to make meaningful connections by delivering the right content at the right time.
How can content marketers adopt AI in their strategies
Now that you know the benefits of AI in content marketing, another factor to consider is how you can effectively use this technology. Here are some of the ways you can integrate AI into your content marketing strategies.
Programmatic ad targeting
The process of automating all or most parts of the ad-buying process with the help of software-driven technology is fast and easy. Earlier, the process of buying or selling ads was long and extremely tedious. It involved talking to a sales-person, setting up a contract, execution, reiteration, and many more steps. However, AI has changed this dynamic drastically.
Using the data collected from cookies present on almost every mobile application or website, the technology will analyze the type of people that visited a particular website. If it finds that people who match your set criteria, which can range from age, gender, time, etc., are frequently visiting the page, they’ll shortlist that website. Based on this data, the ad-buying system will automatically place a bet on the impressions and displays, if it finds a match.
Integrate chatbots
With the rise of apps like Facebook Messenger, Viber and WhatsApp, the trend of customers communicating with brands has gained rapid popularity. Customers love the idea of reaching out to brands directly and telling them what’s on their mind. This is an excellent strategy for marketers too as they can understand what customers are looking for.
However, one aspect of this can quickly become a problem. The more popular a brand, the more customers will reach out to them. Hence, it becomes a challenge for a brand to reply to each customer within a stipulated timeframe. Imagine having to respond to thousands of messages every day, where most of the questions are almost the same anyway.
To defeat such challenges, chatbots have proven to be a marketer’s best friend! An AI program that’s capable of stimulating a conversation with a user in natural language, chatbots can be automated to answer predefined questions. Brands can use this to allow chatbots to respond to frequently asked questions by customers to assist with their buying process.
Optimize for speech recognition
In 2008, Iron Man made history by normalizing the use of voice assistants with Jarvis. While at the time, this technology seemed extremely futuristic and far-fetched, just a couple of years later, a version of it can be found in most homes. Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa are some of the most popular chatbots that make use of speech recognition to converse with customers.
These systems are extremely advanced as they can recognize word images and convert them into speech, as well as use apps like Maps, Weather and YouTube. Moreover, they’re also capable of reading through websites indexed by search engines and delivering the most relevant search results to the consumer.
As people use voice search differently to text search, the content needs to adapt to this change too. There aren’t too many changes that need to be made; subtle phrase changes should be enough. Just think about how people usually talk and make changes accordingly.
Start writing with the AI pen
The benefits of AI in content marketing can’t be denied. If you wish to reach a relevant audience and convert readers into buyers, you need to make use of AI and other advanced technologies. So, if you want to achieve better results and boost your content’s ROI, AI is the route for you!
Further reading
- How to Solve your Content Crunch
- The 9 Ingredients You Need to Make Better Content
- The Content Distribution Playbook
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Arvind Patil
Arvind Patil is an SEO and Content Strategist at SRV Media, a digital agency. He enjoys performing SEO analysis while creating content strategies that connect brands with their target audience. When he is not busy analyzing digital marketing trends, he prefers traveling.
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