The Role of AI in Marketing and How to Use It

Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing marketing. However, AI in marketing is about much more than automating tasks and processes. When marketing teams embrace AI, they gain intelligent tools that use deep learning to deliver clear insight into customer behavior and trends. That knowledge helps them to create highly personalized customer experiences that keep their target audiences engaged while making the most of marketing budgets.

AI in Marketing: A Brief History

While the use of AI as an everyday tool for business functions like marketing is a relatively new trend, the practice of using intelligent machines to handle routine tasks for humans is not.

Recommendation software is an early example of AI in digital marketing. Companies like Amazon and Netflix wholeheartedly embraced aspects of machine learning to maximize the wealth of data they were collecting about the preferences and behaviors of their customers so that they could suggest other products and content they might enjoy or find useful — and might not otherwise discover on their own.

The Explosion of AI in Marketing

A report by PwC predicts that the impact of AI’s deployment in business and elsewhere will add $15.7 trillion to the global economy and boost the gross domestic product (GDP) in local economies by 26% by 2030. And now, with advancements like generative AI, artificial intelligence is experiencing a period of hyper-growth. 

Generative AI can be used to create content including text, images, audio, and video. For companies using AI for marketing, this technology opens the door to analyzing marketing data, creating personalized campaigns, and enhancing customer interactions with much greater efficiency, speed, and scale. 

McKinsey, which conducted research on the economic impacts of generative AI, asserts that the technology “is poised to transform roles and boost performance across functions” — including marketing, sales, and customer operations.

Importance of Using AI in Marketing

So, artificial intelligence is a powerful tool for marketers, and it can be applied to many areas of their work, as we explore in the next section. But one of the key reasons that teams today use AI marketing tools is to automate highly repetitive tasks. 

A recent Salesforce and YouGov survey found that more than half of marketing professionals (53%) see generative AI as a game-changer. Marketers surveyed also estimated that the technology can help them save about five hours of work every week, which translates to about one month per year. (Imagine what your marketing team could accomplish if you could reclaim a month’s worth of work time?)

5 Key Applications of AI in Marketing

Now, let’s examine some of the top ways an AI marketing platform and similar solutions can help to support marketing teams in their everyday work:

1. Customer Segmentation and Targeting

Machine learning models that use cloud infrastructure can handle customer segmentation at scale, allowing marketers to work with large volumes of data with ease and slice and dice that information for use in campaigns. They can personalize and customize marketing assets much more effectively and efficiently with help from AI.

For example, many marketers rely on insights from Invoca’s AI-driven conversation intelligence platform to help them optimize marketing spend. The solution analyzes and extracts data from first-party phone conversations with consumers. So, an HVAC company’s marketing team might learn, for instance, that the business is receiving a high number of calls from consumers in Texas inquiring about air conditioner repair.

2. Marketing Automation and Campaign Optimization

AI marketing platforms enable automation at scale for repetitive tasks such as email, social media posting, ad placement, and content distribution. Removing routine processes frees up more time for marketers to focus on higher-value tasks, like creative marketing and campaign strategy.

Capturing campaign data from phone calls also provides marketing with a missing link when it comes to attribution. Clicks make it easy to attribute sales to email or digital ads, but phone calls have been an opaque area when it comes to getting attribution. AI changes that. Now marketing can get full attribution for every call.

3. Data Analytics and Predictive Modeling

AI can analyze vast amounts of structured and unstructured data, identify patterns in that data, and generate actionable insights into customer behavior and predictive analytics. For example, purchase history and web browsing patterns allow companies like Amazon to anticipate customer needs and personalize customer outreach based on that data through emails, texts, web ads, and digital assistants like Alexa.

AI can also detect insights from customers in real time. Have you ever abandoned your cart while shopping online? How quickly did you receive an email or text asking if you had forgotten something? That’s AI at work.

4. Natural Language Processing (NLP) in Marketing

NLP is AI’s tool for understanding and interpreting human language. NLP plays a vital role in helping marketing teams with sentiment analysis, social media monitoring, and voice-activation marketing, such as voice search. NLP can be customized for each user to hyper-personalize experiences. So, for instance, a chatbot can accompany web users on the customer journey and make suggestions for where to go next on the site for more information.

5. Content and Lead Generation

AI can analyze customer preferences, interests, and browsing behavior to generate relevant and engaging content for those customers. The ability to create compelling content with speed and ease saves marketing teams time and money. It also allows marketers to curate existing content so that customers see only relevant ads and other marketing outreach from the business.

AI can also shorten the lead time between finding the right customer and selling to them. AI quickly analyzes data and matches up similarities between your product or service and potential customers. For example, if your company just landed a big account in the healthcare sector, AI could quickly scan customer databases and create lists of other healthcare businesses with similar needs that your organization could market and sell to.

5 Benefits of Integrating AI in Marketing

As you’ve no doubt gleaned by now, the use of AI in marketing can deliver significant benefits. Here’s a quick overview of some of the most valuable ones for marketing organizations:

1. Improved Targeting and Personalization

Personalization and effective targeting of consumers are key goals for marketing functions. Both are easily achievable using AI.

2. Competitive Advantage and Cost Savings

AI marketing platforms can automate and streamline processes, saving time and resources — and that leads to cost savings and more strategic resource allocation.

3. Enhanced Marketing ROI

AI algorithms optimize marketing campaigns in real time by analyzing data, identifying trends, and adjusting tactics based on customer behavior and preferences. Algorithms can track the customer’s entire journey, even phone interactions, so that marketing can receive accurate attribution for customers’ purchases.

4. Increased Data-Driven Decision-Making

AI analyzes big data quickly and efficiently, picking up valuable insights, trends, and patterns that humans would take far longer to detect, or would otherwise miss. This enables and accelerates more effective decision-making in marketing.

5. Improved Customer Experience and Satisfaction

AI’s predictive capability helps businesses anticipate customer needs so they can address them proactively, further enhancing the customer experience and preserving brand loyalty.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the role of AI in marketing is undeniably transformative and essential in today’s digital age. AI technologies have revolutionized the way businesses connect with their customers, analyze data, and make informed decisions. From personalized recommendations to predictive analytics, AI empowers marketers to deliver more relevant and engaging content, enhance customer experiences, and drive ROI.

Furthermore, continuous learning and adaptation are crucial in the ever-evolving field of AI in marketing. Staying updated with the latest AI advancements and experimenting with new strategies will enable businesses to stay competitive and innovative.

In essence, AI is not just a trend but a pivotal component in modern marketing strategies. When employed effectively and ethically, AI can help businesses build stronger customer relationships, optimize campaigns, and ultimately achieve greater success in the digital marketplace. Embracing AI in marketing is not only a choice but a necessity for those looking to thrive in the dynamic and data-driven world of today.