Marketing, more specifically digital marketing has evolved drastically over the last few decades. From direct mail, cold calls, TV ads to social media marketing, content marketing, and influencer marketing, we have come a long way. After the advent of artificial intelligence, new applications start to emerge that automate and streamline the marketing process.
According to statistics,
- 80% of marketing executives think that AI will revolutionize their industry in 2020
- 64% of marketers consider AI valuable for their sales and marketing strategy.
- 59% of marketers say that AI helped them in identifying prospective customers.
- 53% of marketers think that AI improves their marketing effectiveness and helps them drive more revenue.
In this article, you will learn about how artificial intelligence will change the way we do marketing in 2021.
Types of AI
Artificial intelligence can be broken down into two broad categories
- Artificial General Intelligence
- and Artificial Narrow Intelligence
Artificial General Intelligence
Artificial general intelligence is also known as strong AI or full AI is the intelligence of a machine that has the capability to learn any intellectual task just like a human. This technology takes inspiration from neural networks to perform a cognitive task. When this technology matures, AI will be able to control itself autonomously along with its own thoughts, feelings, strengths, and weaknesses.
Artificial Narrow Intelligence
Artificial Narrow Intelligence also known as weak AI, applied or pragmatic AI focuses on niche problem-solving applications. It can take care of repetitive tasks and deliver business value in the process. It might not challenge us in the way an artificial general network would do but it would surely impact our jobs. Soon, it may learn to make decisions on its own and won’t require human input for it but it currently focuses on tasks that humans assign it.
6 Ways Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Marketing In 2021
Here are six ways in which AI would change marketing in 2021 and beyond.
1. Product Recommendation and Content Curation
Companies like Amazon and Netflix use advanced algorithms to match the content and products to the right customers. This allows them to recommend the best product and content for a customer. The majority of their revenue and business value comes thanks to these sophisticated algorithms. In fact, Netflix has saved more than $1 billion per year by offering contextual recommendations and personalization by using machine learning models.
They did it by serving up content that the user is most likely to watch, like, and share that too within the first 60-90 seconds. They understand the importance of making a great first impression and keeping the user hooked in times when the attention span of users has hit rock bottom.
How can a small business or incessant startup replicate that model with little to no budget? The good news is that the state-of-the-art technologies and tools these top companies use are now available to developers. Moreover, you can easily create AI systems that enable you to offer product and content recommendations based on your target audience’s preferences.
2. AI-Powered PPC Campaigns
Another tech giant that is betting big on artificial intelligence is Google. From RankBrain’s role in search to DeepMind’s role in Google Play app recommendations to Gmail smart compose feature to AI-based noise canceling feature in Google Meet, Google is using AI everywhere and facilitates mobile app developers to embed AI features during mobile app development.
When it comes to PPC campaigns, Google’s smart bidding technology takes center stage. Andrew Miller, co-founder of Workshop Digital shed light on how machine learning and artificial intelligence are changing pay-per-click advertising, “AI and machine learning are enabling PPC analysts to spend less time manually crunching data and more time on strategy development. Our jobs are not in danger yet, but machines are allowing us to rethink and recast our roles as AI-driven tools augment our capacities.”
3. Conversion Rate Optimization with Machine Learning
More and more marketers are focusing on conversion rate optimization to get the best return out of their digital marketing spending and machine learning can assist them in achieving that goal. A/B testing is an integral part of conversion rate optimization. Machine learning algorithms can understand visitors based on their attributes and allow machines to make decisions on the fly about which version of the landing page is ideal for which type of website visitor.
Yosemite Reichert-Sweet, Chief Technology Officer of Unbounce share his experience, “We kept thinking, ‘it is not the page that converts. It’s the visitor.’ So, we started looking at how different visitors convert across different landing pages. The team built and tested machine learning models to see how far we could extend this concept. Sure enough, it turned out that we could drive higher conversion rates beyond what would ever be possible with a one-page-fits-all system. We started prototyping immediately.”
4. AI-Powered Chatbots
One of the most common ways customers interact with AI is through chatbots. AI-powered chatbots collect useful bits of information from specific contexts and try to be as human-like as possible. Users can create a fully customized chatbot and interact and engage with customers. Moreover, they can also use chatbots to deliver customer support and answer the user’s queries. Thanks to natural language processing and sentiment analysis, chatbots will become even more effective as time progresses.
5. Automated Content Creation
The Internet is filled with articles telling content writers that they are about to lose their jobs as AI will take over their jobs. This makes many content writers sweat especially when they see AI-generated content getting published by top publications in the world.
Michelle Halsey, blogger, and copywriter thinks otherwise, according to her, “Talented writers do not need to worry about automation stealing their gigs. At least, not as long as our clients are more interested in engaging their audience than they are sucking up to search engines.” As AI matures, it can not only produce content but can also edit it and remove rough edges to add clarity to your content.
How will artificial intelligence impact marketing in your opinion? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section.
