We’ve all heard about AI one way or another. In the not so distant past, it was the stuff of Sci-fi films. And then it became real. First there were the AI-powered robots that can work independently. Now we have smart devices we can talk to and that talk back to us. But did you know that AI is about to change digital marketing as you know it?
What Exactly Is AI?
According to Wikipedia, artificial intelligence (AI) is defined as “machines (or computers) that mimic “cognitive” functions that humans associate with the human mind, such as learning and problem solving.” Thus, AI represents computerised entities that have the capacity of thinking, making decisions and acting upon these decisions.
The most common form of AI you can experience is one of the virtual assistants: Apple Siri, Google Assistant, Microsoft Cortana or Amazon Alexa. These entities understand human speech and are capable of providing answers to various queries.
What Is the Connection between AI and Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is currently undergoing a massive transformation influenced by AI. A lot of the tools you already use to automate and schedule various social media marketing activities, for instance, use AI to perform these tasks instead of you.
But this is only the beginning. AI is set to become the backbone of digital marketing activities, bringing its huge capacity of storing and analysing data to make your work easier.
Here are some of the most impactful ways in which AI will transform digital marketing and how you can take advantage of it:
1. Chatbots Will Become Lead Capturing and Nurturing Tools
You may have experimented with chatbots already, either on your website or on Facebook Messengers. These are conversational AI, trained to carry out conversations, just like a customer service agent.
Very soon, chatbots will be taking over your work of identifying leads, sending them lead magnets and nurturing them down the sales funnel. Thus, if you are already using chatbots, you should continue training and developing them. If you don’t, it is time to start doing it.
2. Image Recognition Will Identify Brand Mentions and Fight Plagiarism
Do you know every instance when a user is showing off your product online? Or when a cheap knockoff is being sold with your product photo as illustration? Right now, it would mean massive research work, taking up most of your time.
But as AI develops the skill of image recognition, it will be as simple as hitting a “Search” button and receiving the relevant results within moments. This will mean that you can easily earn social mentions, as well as fight trademark infringements more efficiently.
3. Personalise Your Content According to Each Buyer Persona
What if each user reaching your website could see a version of it perfectly adapted to their interests and needs? At this moment, this is somewhat possible thanks to dynamic content.
However, with AI, things can go much further, such as:
- The website is automatically displayed in the user’s native language;
- Limited time offers are scheduled according to each time zone;
- Videos and graphics are adapted to the user’s socio-cultural background.
4. Predictive Analysis Will Bring You More Leads and Loyal Customers
At the present, we have tools that help us somewhat anticipate what leads and clients will do. But these tools are far from perfect. And they do not have the capacity to collect and process automatically huge amounts of data from many sources. In some cases, you have to feed the data into the tool.
AI will not need your intervention anymore. It will be capable of identifying sources of data, capturing these data and performing an accurate and in-depth analysis. For now, what you can do is continue to feed data. This will help the AI embedded in the tools you use learn faster and expand its capabilities.
5. AI Will Make SEO Work Smarter
Google is already using AI to develop ranking signals that influence search results. Soon, marketers will be able to use AI to predict human behaviour at each step of performing a search and interacting with a website.
A few tools of this kind, such as RankBrain, are already on the market. But they need further development to be just as smart as powerful as the Google AI. However, as AI is capable of learning thousands of times faster than a human being, it will not be long until we get there.