Leela Gill is a thought leader and B2B CMO at Alta Mira Marketing, with 15+ years of SaaS experience in Retail, FinTech, and Healthcare.
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From business process automation and voice assistants to photo editing and in almost every sphere of life, artificial intelligence's benefits are all-encompassing. According to a survey by IBM, 35% of respondents said generative AI is one of the most popular emerging technologies that will bring greater changes to business processes, including marketing, in the next few years. It promises to take automation to a new level for marketers by creating content from scratch.
With the emergence of ChatGPT and DALL-E 2 in recent times, the conversation around AI and ML (machine learning) applications has reached a crescendo.
Benefits Of Generative AI In Marketing
As a marketer that is always looking to maximize ROI and experiment with the latest technology, I, like many of us, have tested and used generative AI. Some of its immediate benefits include saving time, personalizing content and helping to create content.
For example, AI and ML are being increasingly used in marketing to provide faster replies to customers than humans. We see this example in chatbots and other search capabilities. Marketers are also using this technology to evaluate and summarize online information, automate content generation and speed up the writing process.
Furthermore, generative AI can analyze data and identify consumer behavior patterns to help marketers create appealing content that resonates with their audience. For example, a marketer could use generative AI to suggest news stories or best practices based on content that the user had previously engaged.
5 Generative AI Use Cases For Marketing
Generative AI has multiple use cases across different industry verticals and, in marketing especially, can enable brands to accelerate the delivery of personalized marketing content while adhering to the brand's writing style and tone.
1. Text or Content Generation
Text generative AI uses natural language processing algorithms and large language models to automate content creation. These models work with large data sets of existing content examples to analyze the pattern and styles of compelling content. In addition to generating unique ideas, AI-generated text can be used for different content creation purposes including:
• Creating content for marketing in the form of emails, social media or blog posts.
• Scriptwriting and storytelling for videos and advertisements.
• Generating clear, concise and engaging product descriptions.
2. Image and Video Generation
Generative AI can automate image generation with deep learning algorithms and generative adversarial networks (GANs). Image generation through these tools can be implemented in marketing in several ways, including:
• Creating highly realistic images of products for use in online stores, social media channels and other marketing materials.
• Developing visual branding of materials like logos.
• Crafting advertising that is engaging and visually appealing.
Also, generative AI video tools can help create high-quality marketing videos and product demo videos, which can help increase brand awareness and facilitate conversions.
3. Marketing Automation and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Generative AI analyzes large amounts of data and can identify consumer behavior patterns to help businesses identify SEO-friendly, relevant, high-performing keywords and phrases for their digital marketing campaigns. In helping to build SEO content, marketers can use generative AI tools for:
• Discovering content topic ideas.
• Conducting keyword research.
• Finding relevant content titles.
• Grouping search intent.
• Creating content structure.
4. Customer Service
You can automate the customer service model with artificial intelligence, as conversational AI models have proven they can quickly understand customer queries and respond to them faster than humans. Generative AI is automating customer service tasks today via:
• Chatbots and messaging apps that can offer customer service channels 24/7.
• Email automation that provides fast responses to common customer queries and requests.
• Self-service portals that have embedded generative AI capabilities that offer personalized recommendations and solutions to clients depending on their queries and history.
• Multilingual support and localization, thus, catering to a large cross-section of society.
5. Enabling a Cookieless Future
Cookieless marketing is the future as platforms like Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox and even Apple are phasing out third-party cookies. Marketing professionals might feel that these new restrictions can diminish the performance of their targeted ads. But rest assured, generative AI can even help in this use case.
Generative AI helps with code generation based on natural language input. The benefits include saving programmers and software developers from laborious tasks like code optimization, bug detection and code completion such that they can focus on tasks that require human intervention.
Concerns About Using Generative AI
There is no question that AI is bringing a revolution to the marketing domain. However, certain risks and pitfalls remain. Machine-generated content still lacks the emotional intelligence that comes with human creativity. As such, it can mute the personality of a brand, which, in turn, can negatively impact customer loyalty, engagement and brand perception.
Additionally, generative AI can quickly create highly targeted content but may not always provide the best or most accurate outcome. Sometimes, AI algorithms make decisions depending on incomplete or inaccurate information leading to poor quality or offensive content.
Marketers can defuse this problem in part by using tools that are regularly tested and updated with current data. But the bottom line is that marketers must understand that generative AI can help automate specific aspects of their campaigns, but it cannot replace the creativity or emotional connections they use in crafting compelling campaigns.
Getting Started With Your Generative AI Journey
As technology evolves, AI will take on more prominent roles across marketing, fueling more innovation and growth. To get started, first define your objectives and determine what areas of your marketing strategy can benefit from AI. Identify the proper use cases where generative AI can improve the efficiency of your marketing programs. Next, make sure to use quality data inputs as AI depends on it to generate valuable insights and accurate predictions. Last, start with small and manageable marketing projects and iterate as you learn and gain experience in using AI in the marketing domain. The key to success is to start small, iterate and continuously improve.
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