The future is now, thanks to these 10 uses of AI in marketing
Artificial intelligence is the big tech topic of the year. Witness the rise of ChatGPT, at the heart of all discussions. In fact, according to Les Makers, the global AI market is estimated to be worth $136 billion by 2023, with projected growth of 1400% over the next 7 years.
This technological upheaval is impacting many areas of society, particularly the professional sphere.
So let's take a look at what AI can do for marketing. How can artificial intelligence help companies to effectively attract, convince and retain potential customers?
Discover 10 use cases to inspire you, and take full advantage of AI's potential 👉.
What is AI in marketing?
The term " artificial intelligence " refers to technology capable of mimicking certain human cognitive functions, such as learning or problem-solving.
23% of marketing professionals and 21% of sales professionals now use artificial intelligence in their work.
Ringover
Marketers have found many uses for this technology, with the aim of optimizing their processes and campaigns. While it serves as a daily assistant for teams, it proves particularly powerful when it comes to performing tasks that are far too complex and/or time-consuming for a human.
👉 We're thinking in particular of anything involving the processing of a large mass of data, requiring tedious calculations... and above all a lot of time!
Artificial intelligence in marketing: 10 concrete examples
# 1 Automation
One of the first uses of artificial intelligence is marketing automation.
Indeed, thanks to AI, teams save precious time on time-consuming and repetitive tasks (data entry, segmentation, A/B testing, etc.), and thereby reduce the risk of errors.
A third (33%) of marketers said the main benefit of using AI and machine learning is the time it saves.
Ringover
What's more, if artificial intelligence automates, it automates intelligently! Its greater computing power, coupled with its predictive capabilities, increases productivity, but also, and above all, the proactivity of marketers.
#2 Predictive analysis
Analysis is an integral part of the marketing department's mission. They need reliable data to study the performance of their campaigns and re-evaluate their strategy if necessary.
But with the development of online commerce, the mass of information is increasing, and the channels to be considered are multiplying:
- social networks,
- online advertising,
- website,
- e-mailing,
- mobile applications, etc.
It's impossible for a human brain to sift through all this data and cross-reference it without spending days doing so. Fortunately, we can once again rely on artificial intelligence.
But where this technology is very strong is that it is also able to " predict the future " 🔮. And that's thanks to Machine Learning, a branch of AI that enables computers to learn from data, then make predictions without being explicitly programmed.
In other words, it's all about using current and historical information to predict tomorrow's buying behavior and trends. It's a handy way to stay one step ahead of your competitors!
#3 Personalizing communications
Every good marketer knows: to stand out from other brands and create a memorable customer experience, it's important to personalize your communications as much as possible. But how do you go about this when you have to send an e-mail or SMS to several thousand contacts?
First of all, personalization means segmentation. And thanks to AI, this can be done by yourself, even if you have to deal with large volumes of data. To do this, artificial intelligence relies on :
- your historical data, such as purchasing behavior and customer navigation data,
- demographic information, such as age, sex or gender, nationality, family situation, etc.
Then, AI is able to personalize your marketing messages, according to predefined segmentation criteria, to give consumers the illusion that you've taken care to write unique content just for them.
👉 If we take emailing as an example, artificial intelligence, beyond mentioning the recipient's name, can suggest products suited to their preferences.
#4 Creating written content
It's impossible to talk about AI in digital marketing without mentioning content creation. The arrival of ChatGPT on the market has considerably changed the landscape. While this program is not yet capable of completely replacing a human, it is nonetheless a real assistant for writing blog articles, describing products and so on.
What's more, in addition to writing, artificial intelligence provides invaluable assistance with content strategy. Some tools, for example, support marketers in search intent analysis or SEO optimization.
💡 The power of AI-driven content creation now extends to social networks, offering an innovative solution thanks to advanced management platforms such as Iconosquare.
This solution is based on cutting-edge, data-centric software, integrating OpenAI's artificial intelligence (Chat GPT-4) to automatically generate post ideas.
Using this functionality, users have the ability to generate fully personalized post ideas, aligned with their activity and calendar context.
AI leverages data from your social profile, including previous posts, and takes current events into consideration to eThis enables you to create more relevant and engaging content for all your social networking activities.
#5 Visual design
Along with ChatGPT, AI marketing tools for creating visuals, such as MidJourney, are the manifestations of artificial intelligence that have attracted the most attention on the web in 2023. In fact, examples of illustrations created using this technology abound on the Internet.
And with good reason, as this type of device can create unique, personalized images simply from textual elements.
Here too, the results are not always on a par with human know-how, but AI is nonetheless an invaluable support on which to build day-to-day productivity.
Illustration by MidJourney:
#6 Content curation
Content curation is the process of selecting, organizing and sharing content in a targeted way. It's all about " sending the right message, to the right person, at the right time ".
Now, just imagine doing this a la mano, to all the contacts in your database... and on all your channels!
Once again, artificial intelligence comes into play: it automates the whole process in a relevant way, while analyzing performance in order to refine the strategy.
👉 The process of content curation driven by artificial intelligence is something we come across every day. These include, for example, the personalized ads that appear on our social network news feeds.
#7 Up-selling
Cross-selling, up-selling... if you do business online, you're probably familiar with these additional sales concepts, designed to boost your sales. But here too, how can you propose offers that are truly adapted to each visitor browsing your website?
Just as artificial intelligence puts forward personalized content, it also knows how to present the right products to a given customer, drawing on its powerful analytical capacity.
👉 This is why we usually see listings of items, such as "customers also liked", when we validate our shopping cart.
Example of an additional sale on the Sephora website:
# 8 Conversation
Who hasn't tried to have a chat with ChatGPT 📢?
Today, artificial intelligence can converse rather fluidly, thanks to advances in natural language processing (NLP). AI models have already demonstrated great proficiency in understanding human language, but also in generating responses that are both coherent and contextual.
It's hardly surprising that companies are exploiting this potential to improve customer relations. Chatbots spring to mind.
These now use machine-learning algorithms, while relying on your settings, to efficiently answer your customers' questions and suggest the right products all by themselves.
The result: support teams save time, without compromising the customer experience.
#9 Voice search
According to an adn.ai study, 28% of French people use voice search every day. This is evidenced by the growing success of Google's Alexa and Apple's Siri assistants.
Marketers therefore have every interest in thinking about how to use this voice search to develop truly differentiating exchanges with consumers.
👉 Why not deploy interfaces, web or mobile, capable of interacting vocally with the customer? It's a great way to answer their questions, accompany them as they navigate... and thus engage them even more!
# 10 Facial recognition
Here's an aspect of AI that companies are still taking little advantage of. And yet, it holds great promise for marketing.
Artificial intelligence can identify facial expressions, age and gender. Facial recognition technologies are therefore mainly used in advertising, with the aim of understanding the emotions felt by consumers when faced with a given piece of content. Once again, the aim is to improve targeting and personalization.
The challenges of artificial intelligence in marketing
More humanity...
Artificial intelligence has revolutionized the way marketing teams work. And this metamorphosis has no end in sight.
However, AI now faces a major challenge: finding the balance between automating tasks and preserving authentic human interaction.
Who hasn't complained about a bot that doesn't understand what it's being told, or about content that uses overly robotic language?
Artificial intelligence models, in their current incarnation, exist primarily to assist teams, particularly in the context of low value-added missions. Strategic projects, on the other hand, still require that indispensable layer of humanity.
... and more ethics
At the same time, AI raises ethical issues, particularly when it collects information without consumers' knowledge. Algorithms often exceed basic privacy rules.
Companies must therefore be transparent about their use of artificial intelligence.
Because, moral issues aside, let's not forget that today's consumers are more observant of the actions of the brands they consume!
What does the future hold for AI marketing?
In conclusion, while AI marketing is changing the lives of businesses, there is still room for improvement. Revolutions will continue to disrupt everyday processes, like the ChatGPT tidal wave in 2023.
However, in a world where the volume of data in circulation continues to grow, and where the very nature of this data is becoming increasingly complex, artificial intelligence will have to be capable of embracing the following paradox: using more technology to provide more humanization and personalization. In short, to put an end once and for all to generic, robotized messages.
However, while the future looks bright on the business side, consumers have every right to be concerned about certain uses of AI, such as voice or visual recognition, which are sometimes used for unethical purposes.
The future of artificial intelligence in marketing must therefore be shaped with certain issues in mind, so as to let the technology flourish without losing control of it.
Article translated from French