How to Use AI in Marketing: Where It Helps (and Where It Hurts)
- Andrew Kita
- October 14, 2024
Artificial intelligence is nothing new. For years, predictive AI has shown us programs we’d like to watch, highlighted and recommended products we might want to buy, and warned us when to expect delays on our commutes. But the use cases around generative AI for marketing are very different.
Generative AI takes all the data we feed it and creates something new. And this ability is turning processes upside-down and raising questions about how best to leverage its power without innovating ourselves right out of our jobs. Since we started investigating the use of AI in marketing, we’ve read countless articles and attended more than a few webinars on the topic. But the recommendations were uncomfortably vague and filled with caveats.
Is AI faster than human marketing teams? Heck yes. No arguments here. But is it ready to take over our responsibilities? Not entirely. But while most industry experts will advise you that human oversight is vital to an AI marketing strategy, guidance on exactly where AI use makes sense — beyond broad categories like “content creation” — is hard to come by. So we decided to weigh in. Here’s how to use AI for marketing, based on our experience so far.
Creating Content with AI
Unpopular opinion time: AI text generation tools aren’t up to the task of creating its own content yet. Blog posts, Ebooks, and articles generated by the most popular AI tools like Jasper, Copy.ai and ChatGPT are unoriginal, uncompelling, and lacking in the proof points needed to convert a reader.
So, if you’re relying entirely on AI to create your content, you might end up with a bad reputation instead of high-performing content. How, then, should you use AI for content creation?
1. Include Your Own Ideas Into the Prompt
AI is an incredible tool, but it needs a guiding hand—your expertise. As a subject matter expert (SME), you possess unique insights and knowledge. Maybe you lack the time or writing ability to translate this into a blog or Ebook, but that’s where AI can step in.
Instead of having AI write broadly on a topic, input specific aspects of your knowledge — bullet points work fine. By using your expertise as a foundation, you’ll create a unique piece that stands out. AI can then help shape a compelling introduction, fill in the gaps, and wrap it all up cohesively.
2. Include Data in AI Content
One major flaw with AI is its tendency to (quite often) make things up — also known as AI hallucination. Nothing screams “low quality” more than factually incorrect writing. While most AI writing tools struggle with sourcing information, there’s a workaround.
Before generating content, use AI to research the specific field (if you don’t already have the data). If you’re using the paid version of ChatGPT, you can even scrape real-time information from the web. A free alternative we like is Perplexity, which makes research much easier compared to traditional search engines.
Once you’ve gathered your data, AI can help you seamlessly integrate those data points into your writing, making it factually accurate and well-sourced.
3. Repurpose Your Content With AI
We know that generative AI isn’t producing new perspectives—it either regurgitates what it has learned or creates convincing inaccuracies. But what if you already have high-quality content and just need help with some tasks, like summarizing or creating social posts?
One of the best AI use cases in marketing is creating copy to promote human-generated assets. While AI’s lack of originality makes it a poor candidate for composing its own blog post or Ebook, it excels at writing copy for landing pages, paid ads, and social media posts that highlight the content you’ve worked hard on.
How to Use AI in Marketing: Content
- Landing pages/Download pages
- Long form content with SME inputs
- Research with real-time web data
- Repurpose existing content (social media posts, ad copy, email copy)
- 100% AI generated content
AI for Improving Customer Experience
AI copywriting tools may still leave a lot to be desired. In contrast, there are tons of AI marketing use cases when it comes to improving the customer experience. The modern customer journey has become non-linear and largely self-serve — and that’s where AI shines.
Chatbots
We pride ourselves on being a high-availability agency. But there’s high availability and there’s literally waiting by the computer in case someone has a question. 62% of consumers would prefer to speak to a chatbot rather than wait for a human agent to answer their questions, and the majority rate their experience as positive. Tread with caution though: while chatbots are ideal for answering general questions about your brand or offering, they aren’t the best at resolving more complex issues.
Personalization Tools
It used to be easy to nurture leads — once someone from your team had made contact with a prospect and determined they weren’t ready to convert, it was easy to feed them relevant content based on the information they had provided. But today’s leads don’t always identify themselves so readily. AI personalization tools can analyze prospects’ digital data to help you serve up web content, social media posts, and emails that will move them down the funnel. Of course, it’s essential to be transparent and ensure your data is not used in an intrusive way that could sour the experience for your potential customers.
Translation
AI translation tools can be a tempting option if you serve (or want to serve) a multilingual audience. Today’s AI-powered translation tools are significantly better than we have historically expected and can translate content or messages in a fraction of the time it would take a human translator. Fair warning: they’re still not perfect. We had native speakers on our team review content translated into Japanese, Mandarin, French, Spanish, and Dutch. While the meaning of the content was clear, there were still a number of grammatical errors that would clue readers into the fact the copy wasn’t written by a native speaker.
How to Use AI in Marketing: CX
- Chatbots that provide general information about your company, products or services
- Personalization tools that feed prospects useful, relevant content
- Multi-lingual support only when you have native speaking support
- Chatbots in place of human representatives to answer complex inquiries
- Personalization tools that abuse customer data or spam them with unwanted content
- Translating content just to increase traffic and clicks
AI for SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
Almost every article I’ve read about using AI for marketing mentions search engine optimization. Developments in AI technology are obviously having a major impact on how we search for information online, so it only makes sense that marketers would leverage AI for SEO. But there are still limits here too.
Keyword Research
AI tools make it easy to brainstorm content topics and streamline keyword research by analyzing third-party content for ideas. However, SEO-specific tools like Ahrefs or Semrush remain essential. Asking an AI tool for keywords will yield a list, but it won’t be grounded in key metrics like search volume or user intent since AI doesn’t have access to this data.
AI can generate a preliminary list, but running it through SEO tools ensures your keywords align with your strategy and deliver results.
Competitor Research
AI is excellent at analyzing online content. With real-time search capabilities, it can quickly scan and summarize lengthy articles, saving you from reading 2,000-word blogs just for a few key takeaways.
SEO experts often spend time identifying how to outrank competitors. Now, AI can analyze top-ranking pages on Google and uncover what sets them apart—whether it’s the use of specific keywords or content elements your client’s page is missing. This analysis can reveal if your strategy is heading in the wrong direction or missing crucial pieces users are searching for. Just ensure your page maintains its unique message and appeal; otherwise, you risk blending into the crowd. No one wants to see another carbon copy of what’s already out there.
Content Optimization
While AI may not always match the quality of human creativity, it offers speed that’s hard to beat. SEO professionals often work with content teams to enhance on-page SEO through keyword optimization, internal linking, and readability improvements. AI tools can review existing content and provide targeted suggestions for where to insert keywords, add backlinks, or improve flow.
Another tedious SEO task is metadata optimization. With AI, you can generate page titles, meta descriptions, and URLs tailored to your desired keywords, all within character limits. This not only saves time but also ensures consistent optimization across multiple pages.
How to Use AI in Marketing: SEO
- Brainstorm an initial list of keywords
- Conduct research on top ranking pages for a desired keyword
- Get suggestions for on-page SEO and metadata
- Rely entirely on AI to generate keywords
- Ask AI to “optimize your content for SEO”
We Know How to Use AI in Marketing
AI and marketing can go together like peanut butter and jelly — but only if you know where to leverage generative AI and where tasks should stay firmly in human hands. At TPM, we’re continually experimenting with new and evolving AI tools to identify where they can offer marketing efficiencies. We’re always here to help boost your marketing efforts with a hybrid AI-human campaign or help you select the AI tools that fit best in your strategy. Check out our AI Tech Stack or contact us with your questions.
