Artificial intelligence possesses the ability to optimize almost everything about projects and processes. As a result, AI has a prominent place in all the progress made today. What is the role of AI in content marketing world?
Nowadays, content marketers face a laborious uphill battle because they need to produce more articles than ever. As the competition in the content marketing sector is becoming tighter, the demand for quality contents that will justify the investment in them also rises. This investment is significant because one will need a skilled staff to generate the necessary contents.
And right at this very moment, somewhere, somebody is brainstorming a headline for an article that he or she has been painstakingly working on for how many days. You probably know how it feels if you’re into the content writing business. It’s never easy. There are many tools available to cater the needs of content marketing campaigns, but it seems as though they’re never enough.
Could AI be the answer to this drawback?
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How Good is Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Your Content Marketing Endeavors?
You probably heard about the futuristic potential of artificial intelligence and other related technologies. Although it’s a subtle shift, artificial intelligence (AI) is slowly pervading our everyday lives, be it at home, work, or business. And now that it finally reached content marketing, the industry is poised for some significant changes.
Artificial intelligence possesses the ability to optimize almost everything about projects and processes. It enhances your creativity and skills to create more appealing, relevant, and useful content for different audience bases. Apart from marketing, this technology also has the potential to streamline and bolster operation efforts, customer service, and sales while leveraging performance and productivity at the same time.
According to the report of the Economist Intelligence Unit for 2017, out of more than 200 global business executives who participated in their survey, 75% revealed that they will use AI in the next three years. 79% believe AI will make their jobs more efficient and easier. It’s no longer surprising when analysts predicted the market of artificial intelligence to surpass $100 billion by 2025.
The question now is, what do all of these mean for the content marketing industry and content marketers?
AI’s Effect on Content Marketing Field
For starters, content marketers will need to produce a large volume of content to complement the new status quo, although they can still make a living by creating such contents. They’re also free to use AI tools such as predictive analytics, generation algorithms, and natural language processing to create and rewrite articles.
The growth of AI combined with human skills can bring about massive changes in content marketing strategy and organization, particularly when it comes to the usage of the content to realize business objectives. A few of those changes include the following.
1. Personalization
Many brands are on constant innovation to provide a more personalized experience to their audience and stand out in the sea of content competition. And because the game is no longer the same, their success heavily depends on high-level data analysis that’s only attainable through the help of AI technology.
Perhaps the most popular example of AI incorporation in content marketing right now is Watson, the one that fuels the new ‘THINK Marketing’ hub of IBM. Watson was able to offer personalized content through evaluating what people read and then using the insights out of those evaluations.
According to Bob Lord, IBM’s Chief Digital Officer, IBM Watson looks a lot like a regular publishing site, but it renders topics virtually. It can also configure a different buyer type in endless ways.
2. Recommendations and Predictions
Companies and brands such as Amazon, Netflix, and Spotify are using AI, to offer relevant suggestions on what to buy, watch or listen. Thus, through leveraging vast amounts of data, AI makes it easy to identify which is which, who likes what, and who’s likely to like what.
The only downside of this technology is that it’s not for the benefit of the users. Marketers who work on production and content strategy can use AI-powered suggestions and predictions to elevate their efforts. One notable example is NewsCred, an enterprise content marketing company.
According to Johnny Chen internet marketing, the goal isn’t to predict but to give editors suggestions and tips when it comes to content marketing. It’s best to create contents that address particular issues and provide recommendations that are beyond engagement goals. In other words, your contents must be sincere.
3. Content Automation
Publishers and companies like The Washington Post, the Associated Press, Samsung, Comcast, FOX, and Yahoo are using automated content generation for many years. They use AI technology to generate business, basic news, and sports stories.
In general, their articles are so convincing that even readers couldn’t tell the difference between a simple sports coverage written by humans and robots, according to the study conducted by Karlstad University in Sweden.
Content writers don’t have to worry as the bots won’t be taking over anytime soon, at least not yet, because automated content production still requires a human-made template. Then there’s the emotional requirement too that bots still can’t replicate, especially the opinion pieces that obligates emotional storytelling and tone which only humans can better do.
Notwithstanding, AI is beneficial in content creation, be it coming up with titles, suggesting textual changes or optimizing a piece of content for its particular goals.
4. Minimizes Production Costs
AI is too expensive for generating pure content, but it will be readily accessible for everyone in the future. For the meantime, it mainly targets opportunities in the post-production of content which aids content creators and article rewriters in producing high-quality contents for a lesser cost.
Although the generation of content is still in infancy, computers are now getting better when it comes to editing content starting from the first draft up to the shareable version.
5. Microtargeting
One of AI’s biggest assets is its ability to accurately target different market segments with messages that resonate with them at a certain period. The simple variables such as the soundtrack to a clip, which sports gets a mention in passing or the gender of people in an article, all of these could be automatically varied to directly reach with readers according to their information and fields of interests.
Since AI makes it easier for content marketers to assess the content’s possible reception, the bar for the quality of content marketing will be more likely to rise.
6. Vital Research
To unlock the real potential of AI technology to automate the comprehension of content in a carefully distilled manner, marketers need to find promising and new avenues for content creation.
The prevalence of social media in your SEO campaign is something that you shouldn’t ignore. The AI-driven tools can render power in your keyword, social media and content marketing research.
7. Results Tracking
The combination of big data and machine learning allows a more accurate analysis of the bottom-line effect of content marketing activities. It’s critical because you’ll get direct evidence regarding the effects of different content topics, voices, and lengths. These data are beneficial for content creators for them to find out what the market wants.
As the universe of content marketing begins to feel the impacts of these changes, you should jump aboard the bandwagon. Use Artificial Intelligence wisely and keep updated with content marketing rules.
The truth is that AI helps many marketers understand the ever-evolving industry of content marketing through helping them to understand the intention of the user fully and efficiently by studying the data.
How Should You Do It?
If you seriously consider incorporating AI systems in your daily content marketing processes, better get ready for a more personalized, productive, predictive, and performance-driven content. Check out the following instructions below.
Automate Content Generation
Although this practice isn’t new one, it’s always important to use AI to your advantage and make content for simple stories such as stock updates and sports reports.
The automated content generation has been a common practice of different companies such as The Associated Press and Fox for years. It could be that you see algorithm-written content without even noticing it, so make the most out of it.
Promote User Interaction through Chatbots
If you’re wondering what chatbots are, they’re AI-powered computer programs whose purpose is to imitate conversations with a user which they often do so with average success.
One notable example is Facebook Messenger that uses chatbots to commence superficial conversations among the users and other services. These chatbots are also useful in delivering promotional content when the user responds. It enables them to reply to queries and concerns in real-time.
Companies like Uber and Sephora also use chatbots to allow users to request for rides without powering up the apps or to make it easier for users to select different beauty products without going to the actual stores. Thus, provide users with all the relevant information they need and streamline your customer support with chatbots. Create your chatbots, and kiss goodbye to the time-consuming forms.
Engage Your Visitors with Customized News
The rule of thumb is to create customized news feeds for the users. You need to show only the posts that capture the interest of the visitors. Take your cue from the major social channels such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter – all of which use customized contents for their users.
The only downside of this process is that it requires analyzing numerous variables, which is only possible with Artificial Intelligence. It doesn’t mean that human intelligence is incapable, but it’s only through AI that you can predict what posts will drive engagement from the users with accuracy.
You can also use algorithms to identify the relevancy scores for ads that you can find in social media. Through this method, you can present those ads with the high probability of drawing the user’s attention. Use all the data that you can exhaust to identify which ad will click with your audience. You can also use it as a reference in creating personal ads for Facebook.
Enhance Marketing Experience Through AI
As a marketer, it’s your responsibility to prioritize the visitors and make sure that you attend to their needs right away. And this my friend, is possible through the use of AI.
How? Here’s the thing, some data algorithms generate and accumulate contents which make it easier for marketers to determine which content will generate engagements in the buyer’s section and what possible channels the consumers will use at a specified time.
The moral lesson: Make your users feel comfortable by creating personalized experiences for them through Artificial Intelligence.
Right now, only big content-focused enterprises are using a gamut of content-generating tools. However, it’s only a matter of time before these tools will become available to smaller companies. And, perhaps, when that time comes, they’ll realize that knowing all the details alone is not enough.
Hence, it’s important to devise effective AI strategies and incorporate them into the structure of your business.
Devise a Strategic Customer Experience
What better way to bring your relationship with your audience to the next level than to use Artificial Intelligence? It’s unquestionable that this technology is very efficient in analyzing the behaviors of your audience. The data it collects will help you develop, and target personalized and dedicated pages that draw your audience attention.
For example, you can use a customized landing page to respond to possible questions that your visitor might have through the different elements on the landing page. Seize their interest and make them click the Call-To-Action tabs because this will help you in meeting your conversion target.
Takeaway
The impact of AI in the content marketing sector is inevitable, and it’s something that content marketers and creators should welcome. Instead of seeing it as a threat, it’s ideal to incorporate it to your content marketing endeavors to give your campaigns the much-needed lift. On the flip side, you shouldn’t be entirely dependent on it too, because you still need to use your manual content marketing skills and reinforce it with AI tools, and that’s what makes a success equation.