How AI has become critical to marketing success | Association of Canadian Advertisers

You may have already noticed that digital marketing strategies have become more diverse these past few years. The focus has shifted toward social media, SEO, content marketing, visual marketing, and, more recently, AI or artificial intelligence. It is therefore critical for marketers to consider the role AI can play in their marketing strategies and business plans. Here are four areas in which AI can have a positive influence on your marketing plans:

1. It helps you better understand your customers

You already have tons of data, thanks to a variety of digital marketing touchpoints. You know a lot about your customers, their characteristics, what they like, and the types of content in which they engage. However, AI can take that data one step further, allowing you to process the information to improve your understanding of customers.

Today, machine learning AI techniques and tools can personalize messages very efficiently. It can also help you segment audiences to cater to your potential buyers.

2. Search and recommendations

A quick Google search will demonstrate just how sophisticated search engines have become. Today, the AI algorithm understands terms much better than it used to. You don’t even have to type an entire sentence to get suggestions of what you may be searching for. All of this is made possible by AI.

For marketers, this means increasing resources devoted to search engine optimization to ensure good ranking for a variety of keywords.

Whether it’s on search engines like Google or Bing, or platforms like Netflix and Amazon, ensuring your content related to your products, services or brands rank at the top of the results is key to success.

3. Customer service

Chatbots and AI messengers are now widely used for customer service. They can help customers solve problems or answer questions before directing them to a customer service representative if the issue is more complex.

Chatbots have the ability to learn from their experiences by increasing their databanks. It is as if they have a mind map that expands every time a user interacts with it.

4. Social listening

Machine learning AI helps businesses know what is being said around their brand and industry and determine whether it is negative or positive. Artificial intelligence tools can study the internet, collate data, and examine it.

It can analyze the content of comments, thank users for positive comments, appease negative users, and offer solutions. It also helps gather information for a performance review of your social media accounts.

Key takeaway

Over the past few years, artificial intelligence has improved dramatically to make a difference in the way businesses market themselves. There is still a lot to learn and improve, but AI is already helping brands better understand their customers, social media sentiment, and more.

Ermelinda Maglione is a journalist and specialist in digital journalism. She has more than 15 years of digital writing and copywriting experience, especially in marketing, social media, and SEO. Currently, she is a Content Marketer for Venngage.