Leveraging artificial intelligence in marketing is not a new concept. The technology has been proving its finesse in analytics and other backend tasks for a while now. But it’s only recently that AI is being proactively used in several front-end tasks too. Machines are now learning to mimic creativity – the one critical element in marketing. 

In this blog, we’ll talk about the many ways in which brands have been tapping into the potential of AI to refine their day-to-day marketing tasks. 

AI in marketing – why is it a worthy investment? 

Transitions aren’t easy. Transitions that involve new technology are particularly overwhelming. So, let’s talk about a few reasons why you should probably consider adapting to this transition involving the use of AI in marketing. 

• In a survey by McKinsey & Company in 2020, about 79% of respondents reported that there can be a significant boost to business revenue by effectively incorporating AI into marketing and sales. And over the past 2 years, a lot has happened in favor of this perception. 
• The market value of AI in marketing was 15.84 billion U.S. dollars in the year 2021 and it is projected to reach 107.5 billion U.S. dollars by the year 2028. About a 7-fold increase in 7 years! That shows the rapid pace at which AI is evolving in the marketing realm. 
• Based on a 2018 survey by Statista about using AI in email marketing, there was a 41% boost in revenue observed along with a 13.44% improvement in CTR. Email marketers know the struggle in pushing those click-through rates and so knowing that AI can help with that don’t you think it’s a worthy technology to invest in? 

As you can see from the data above, AI has been creating ripples for quite some time now. And marketers everywhere are curious about making the most of it. 

After all, a good marketing strategy is one that understands and adapts to emerging trends if those trends are a customer favorite too. By now you probably already know that your consumers are also talking a lot about AI. So, they tend to be more inclined to businesses that are up-to-date with technology that enhances their experience. 

And now for the big question – how do you use AI in marketing? Let’s find out. 

5 ways brands are leveraging AI in marketing 

1. Employing AI for dynamic pricing 

Pricing has a special place irrespective of whether you choose the 4Ps of marketing or the 7Ps of marketing. In a way, the price of your product is often seen as an indicator of your product’s value. While people might be looking to save a little money while shopping, consumers are skeptical about buying a cheap product. After all, there is a common conception that you get what you pay for. 

At the same time, people are not always ready to spend an exorbitant sum of money on every product. The pricing strategy of a brand should therefore depend on a variety of factors including the product category, demand, market trends, and others. 

You cannot set and forget when it comes to your pricing strategy. Real-time adjustments based on real-time market changes and demand fluctuations help create the best pricing model that attracts more customers while also maintaining the expected profit margin. And for this artificial intelligence can be an effective tool. 

Amazon is one of the most popular brands known for its AI-driven dynamic pricing model. AI is the reason behind those ever-changing prices on the items on your Amazon Wishlist. Recently, sellers have also been using dynamic pricing to keep up with the competition in this ecommerce marketplace. With this Amazon is able to take into account a variety of parameters including competitor pricing and instantly alter prices to boost sales. 

2. AI in copywriting 

AI in copywriting has been a trending topic on social media for quite some time now. And when ChatGPT was introduced, the topic gained momentum. People are in awe at the speed at which ChatGPT can generate copy for ads, captions for social media, and other copywriting tasks. 

Tools like OpenAI AI Text Classifier can help identify text generated by AI. Search engines like Google are also not always in favor of AI-generated text. So, if you do choose to use AI for copywriting, similar to using AI in design, use the tool for generating ideas but remember to add your brand’s flavor to it. That’s how you keep the text more human and on-brand. 

Want to know what it’s like using AI for copywriting? We’ll give you an example. 

Jean-Baptiste Le Divelec, a copywriter, is known for experimenting with AI and its potential in the creative fields. One of his experiments was where he trained an artificial neural network with 7 years’ worth of data from Nike’s advertisements and marketing data. Based on the many campaigns from the brand and the brand identity data, AI was able to generate an anthem for the brand. 

The idea here was to create something inspiring, a copy that aligns with the Nike brand. As you can see in the above video, while the copy generated is not perfect, it’s easily passable as a Nike ad with its powerful words and with several keywords in the copy aligned with many other Nike ads. 

3. AI in design for marketing graphics 

AI design tools like Midjourney and DALL-E have been making headlines for being able to generate artwork in seconds. These image generators can take in text prompts and create images instantly. From defining your visual style to the colors and scenes you can tweak your image in several ways. It all depends on the prompts you use. 

Some of these AI tools are exceptionally simple to use and can generate results fast. So, how can you use these AI design tools in marketing?

• AI-generated models can be featured in ads
• You can generate specific design elements like icons or background photos and scenes to use in your promotional graphics
• AI-generated designs can be a source of inspiration for specific campaigns 
• They can be used to generate variations of visual styles to compare the results and find what works for your objectives. 

Kimp Tip: AI design tools can generate a variety of different styles but you would still have to work with a graphic design team or a DIY design tool to put everything together to capture your brand identity and campaign goals. And if this happens to be a designated design team working on your brand’s graphics, your designs are more consistent and they help build your brand image effectively. 

4. AI for content personalization

Gone are the days when you could create and post content merely based on keywords in your niche and expect traffic. Yes, keywords are still very valid in content creation. But how you identify these keywords is not the same anymore. 

Content consumers these days prioritize quality over quantity. Instead of subscribing to a blog that has multiple posts going live every day, they might subscribe to blogs that only have a few informative and engaging blogs every week. The same goes for social media. Consumers do not expect you to post several times daily. Instead, everything you post should have a clear-cut connection to your brand and it should create value for your customers. 

The idea is simple. You create content that’s ranked well by the search algorithm and social media algorithms. But these algorithms aim at personalizing content for the end users. So, optimizing your content for your consumers automatically optimizes it for the algorithm as well. 

Why are we talking about all this? Because AI is one of the most effective assets to help optimize content creation and content delivery. 

Netflix shows how this can be done. Did you know that about 80% of what people watch on Netflix is from the content recommendation they see? Netflix’s recommendation algorithm is one of the best examples of delivering content optimization through the use of machine learning and AI in general. 

In fact, Netflix has been using machine learning to understand the kind of content that people watch and its original content including movies and TV shows are based on this data. That’s why you see a lot of Netflix originals garner a lot of attention on social media. 

According to Statista, nearly 42% of marketers use artificial intelligence to personalize the content being delivered to customers. And you should too! 

5. AI for better customer interactions 

Marketing goes beyond promoting your products and services. It is about delivering experiences that convert leads to customers and retains existing customers. From personalizing your newsletters for better communication quality to incorporating relevancy and speed into your customer interaction modules, there are many ways to use AI technology. 

IBM’s Watson technology is a good example of how AI can help establish better conversations with consumers. 

ABN AMRO Bank N.V. uses IBM Watson technology, an AI-driven conversational model with superior natural language processing capabilities. The conversational AI platform that the bank uses based on this technology is called Anna and it has more than 1 million customer conversations annually. 

The idea of a chatbot to answer customer queries automatically is not new. But with robust AI incorporated, the conversations have a human touch and the answers are more relevant and useful to customers. Moreover, they help direct the customer to the right support team wherever required. All these efforts help reduce the customer service workload while also shortening the TAT for customer query resolution. 

About 90% of marketers from across the globe are using AI as a measure to improve customer interaction. So, customer service is one area where brands can make a big difference by incorporating artificial intelligence. 

Harness the power of AI in marketing for your business

As you can see, the possibilities of AI in marketing are endless. It’s time to bid adieu to the stereotypical conventions of AI taking over jobs and adopting the technology to improve the productivity of the existing workforce. AI in marketing, AI in design, in fact in most spaces where AI has made significant progress have proven the collaborative potential of this technology and its ability to augment human effort. 

So, what’s your take on this? Have you already accommodated AI in your infrastructure? If not, now is a good time to take a trial run. And while you automate the rest of your marketing workflow, you also need a design team that can keep up with the pace. A design production strategy that can keep up with your business when you choose to scale. Yes, we are talking about design subscriptions and their ability to help businesses scale without a hassle. 

Not ready to take the leap and make a big change? No problem. Kimp has a free 7-day trial to help you test the waters before taking the plunge. Register now!