“Predicting the future isn’t magic; it’s artificial intelligence.” – Dave Waters.

When John McCarthy and ten other scientists gathered together at Dartmouth College in 1956 to discuss the concept of artificial intelligence, they were merely exploring a question that was earlier posed by Alan Turing, which was ‘Can machines think?” They had no idea how far the concept would actually go. Fast-forward to today, if there’s one thing that we can be sure of, especially since Facebook announced its name change to Meta, artificial intelligence is here to stay. 

Businesses must adapt to stay competitive, efficient, and relevant. Every industry is benefitting abundantly from artificial intelligence. And if you aren’t already, you should start thinking about using AI to gain more profound clarity on marketing insights. 

This article will explore artificial intelligence in marketing and how to use AI to automate your business marketing. 

What is Artificial Intelligence in Marketing?

Many businesses use artificial intelligence in their marketing strategies to save time, effort, and money. However, there is still some confusion about how artificial intelligence can impact marketing specifically. Artificial intelligence collects information and data based on observations, behavior patterns, and current economic trends in layman’s terms.

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Artificial intelligence is mainly used in cases where speed is of the essence. Around 37% of businesses and organizations employ AI already. In marketing, AI’s intelligent tools can help marketers understand how best to approach consumers and improve customer communication while minimizing human effort at the same time. 

Businesses aim to improve their marketing strategies to their maximum potential with the minimum possible human intervention required in this process. 

Benefits of Artificial Intelligence in Marketing

1. Better Targeted Recommendations

Let’s be honest – mass marketing is old news now. Customers are not going to respond or interact with traditional advertising anymore. Instead, people prefer personalized, targeted advertising. 

However, your audience is intelligent, and your marketing approach needs to be smart enough to feel tailor-made for your audience. You have to understand your consumer behavior. According to a survey by Accenture, 40% of US consumers prefer buying from brands that offer a personalized experience.

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A significant benefit of targeted marketing is that it saves time sending people ads they wouldn’t be interested in. According to Adlucent, 46% of consumers say targeted advertising filters out irrelevant advertising. Another 25% said that targeted marketing helped them discover new great products.

2. Chatbots Replace Customer Service

Shopping patterns are constantly changing, especially since the boom of e-commerce. According to SaleCycle, the peak online shopping hours are from 8-9 pm. Many shoppers tend to shop in the later parts of the evening. But, of course, you can’t expect to have a fully functioning customer service team round the clock. That is where chatbots can be a game-changer for your business.

Chatbots can assist consumers and answer the most commonly asked queries. That reduces human time and effort but still feels more personal to the customer than reading from a FAQ page. Understandably, not all questions can be answered by machines yet. However, that doesn’t mean you need to spend a lot of money hiring a customer support team.

Instead, you can hire a virtual assistant to redirect customer queries that a chatbot can’t answer. The best part about virtual assistants is that they are more cost-effective, as they are paid hourly, and are flexible with their work timings, so they can even work night shifts, which are slowly becoming peak online shopping hours.

3. Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, helps improve customer experience on the internet and is an excellent way for businesses to reach new audiences looking for their products and services. 

Integrating AI into your website can help correct spelling errors and help guide consumers towards the right products. For example, “were you looking/searching for…..?”. Artificial intelligence studies behavior patterns and helps find the most relevant search results. For instance, based on your previous search history, AI is intuitive and would know if you are looking for ‘Dove,’ the beauty brand, or the bird.

Machine learning has evolved so much over the years that if you use your phone to search for a Chinese restaurant, it will show you places close to your geographical location, making search engine optimization beneficial for both businesses and consumers.

However, to make sure your business is optimized for search engines, you need to have relevant keywords in the content of your website and social media pages, which will make your business pop up quickly on search engines like Google and Bing. SEO is a tricky concept, and you need a skilled professional to help you find the best keywords.

A social media assistant can help you research and create keyword-relevant content, which will make it easier for interested consumers to find you online. Since virtual assistants are not permanent employees, you can hire them on a project basis to make your SEO-friendly website.

4. Content Creation

Are machines smart enough to create content? Unfortunately, it’s not a simple question to answer. While artificial intelligence is smart enough to put words together in a cohesive manner, it still lacks a human touch. 

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So the short answer is no, machines are not yet smart enough to create content that can fool consumers into thinking humans made it.

To create content for your brand, you still need a content writer. But there are other aspects of copywriting where artificial intelligence can perform much better than any human. For example, machine learning can help you identify current topics to give writers an idea of what content to create. That saves hours on market study and research.

Artificial intelligence is also great for identifying your existing content and its performance. Figuring out your best performing content can help you create similar types of content to generate better engagement, which will eventually convert into 

While artificial intelligence probably can’t replace your content creator, it shouldn’t be dismissed altogether but instead be used to scale up your content marketing with minimal human effort.

5. Optimized Ads

Constantly being bombarded with advertisements can be annoying. That is why so many consumers have installed AdBlock to prevent irrelevant spam. In such a scenario, artificial intelligence can be used to optimize ads to reach relevant consumers.

How does this help? It helps brands narrow down their targets and spends less time and money on advertisements. In addition to that, it also reduces the number of unnecessary ads consumers receive. It’s a win-win situation for both parties involved.

Everything we do on the internet is data. Artificial intelligence observes online behavior and converts this data into useful information. For example, it tracks shopping habits and search history, analyzes the pages, social media sites, and accounts we follow, and curates advertisements based on consumer patterns. Artificial intelligence can be a great asset to businesses and consumers when used ethically.

So, Can Machines Replace Humans?

Coming back to Turing’s question that inspired artificial intelligence, it’s clear that machines can study human patterns and deep learning. Artificial intelligence is here to stay, and the best move for businesses is to adapt and integrate AI into their operations, along with human effort, to maximize their business efficiency.