The number of businesses using AI technology has grown by 270% in the last four years. Simply put, there’s value in artificial intelligence. This is especially true when it comes to marketing.

After all, marketing is all about getting in front of the right people with the right message. But as technology has advanced, so too has the way marketers can target their audiences. 

Advancements in AI marketing have made it possible to automate much of the marketing process. This includes everything from identifying potential customers to serving them personalized content. But there’s a danger of going too far and using automation to replace human interaction altogether. 

So how do you find the balance between automating your marketing and achieving that personal touch? Read on to find out. 

What Is AI Marketing?

AI marketing relies on the use of artificial intelligence to automate marketing tasks. This can include things like:

• Creating targeted ads
• Personalizing email campaigns
• Building custom models to predict customer behavior

What’s the point of that? By using AI, businesses can save time and money on marketing tasks. They can also increase the effectiveness of their campaigns.

Likewise, the benefits of using AI marketing tend to compound when you pair them with the right balance of automation and personalization. After all, you don’t want to entirely automate marketing tasks and customer interactions.

As more businesses adopt AI marketing, it will likely become an essential part of the marketing mix. In this sense, it pays to stay ahead of the competition. It’s important to understand where AI can help you optimize your marketing processes.

For now, it’s helpful to explore different types of AI marketing that might make sense for your business.

Three Parts of a Great AI Marketing Strategy

When it comes to marketing, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Every business is different. So, what works for one might not work for another. 

However, most businesses can benefit from incorporating AI tools into their marketing processes in some way. Regardless of how you decide to go about using AI marketing, there are three components of any great AI-focused marketing strategy.

Let’s explore these three main components. This will help give you a basic idea of how businesses similar to yours are implementing AI tactics into their marketing efforts.

Personalization

Personalization refers to the process of tailoring content and messaging to the individual user. This can be done through things like tracking user behavior and using machine learning to identify patterns.

Segmentation

Segmentation is the process of dividing users into groups based on shared characteristics. This allows your business to send more targeted messages that are more likely to resonate with each group. 

Automation

Automation refers to the use of AI to automate repetitive tasks, such as sending emails or placing ads. This can free up time for marketers (or your employees) so that they can focus on other tasks.

Examples of AI Marketing Tools & Strategies

Now, aside from incorporating those three main components into an AI-focused marketing strategy, how are businesses using these tools on a day-to-day basis? We’ve got a list of some great examples of AI marketing for you below.

It’s important to note that when it comes to marketing with artificial intelligence, there are a variety of different tools and strategies available. So, this list below isn’t comprehensive. 

However, we have found that these are particularly relevant to brands in the technology and financial technology sectors.

Customer Service

AI tools can help improve customer service in the technology and fintech industries by automating repetitive tasks, such as responding to customer queries.

These types of tools can also be used to collect data about:

• Customer behavior
• Customer preferences
• Customer needs 

What do you do with this data? You analyze it (or you have a team of marketing experts analyze it). They’ll be able to extract what’s important. Then, they’ll use that to craft more highly-targeted marketing campaigns.

Overall, the goal is to increase your number of leads, conversions, and revenue. However, when it comes to customer experience, they can use that data to help you understand how to improve the sales process at every touchpoint. This includes, for example, offering more explanation at points where customers seem to lack understanding.

In addition, AI can help businesses to resolve customer complaints more quickly and efficiently. 

With more and more consumers losing trust in financial institutions, fintech companies have an opportunity to build that trust via personalized attention and great customer support.

So, if your business uses an AI-powered chatbot, for example, it can provide an immediate response to customer inquiries, and can even escalate issues to human agents if necessary. 

As a result, AI can help businesses like yours improve both the quality and speed of their customer service. With the data you collect during that process, you can turn around and use that for more targeted marketing messages and campaigns.

Behavior Analysis

Whether you have an app, sell software, or simply offer consulting services, it pays to have a deep understanding of how your customers behave. Not only can it help you craft better offerings and products, but it can help you create more effective marketing campaigns.

How so? By analyzing large data sets, AI-powered software can identify patterns and trends that would be difficult for humans to spot. You can then use this information to personalize marketing messages and improve the effectiveness of campaigns. 

In addition, AI tools can also be used to monitor customer feedback and identify areas where your business needs to make improvements. 

For example, if you see that people are complaining about a particular feature in your software, create a marketing campaign explaining how to use the feature in more depth. Address areas of concern and sell the value of that feature.

Ultimately, by understanding how customers interact with your products and services, AI provides you with the ability to make more informed decisions about where to invest your resources. This is beneficial for your marketing but also your bottom line.

Content Creation

Did you know that AI can help businesses with their content in a few different ways? AI can help you create or enhance text, videos, or images that are used in marketing campaigns. 

This means that, with the help of AI, you can use AI tools to automatically generate customized content for individual users.

It can, as mentioned above, also help to analyze data and customer behavior patterns to better understand what content is most effective. This provides you with way more insight than you could get via Google Analytics or Facebook Ads.

To harness the power of AI content creation tools, you’ll need to ensure you have the perfect mix of automation and personalization, however. Automating this marketing task too much can make you sound mechanical and disconnected.

We suggest using this type of marketing with AI carefully. Ultimately, nothing replaces a qualified team of content creators specialized in SEO, copywriting, and digital marketing strategies.

However, if AI can help you analyze your customers’ buyer’s journey to identify what kind of content is most likely to resonate with a particular customer then definitely use that data and run with it!

How to Successfully Balance Automation and Personalization With AI Marketing

Alright. We’ve finally made it to the most important part: how do you successfully strike a balance between personalization and automation when incorporating everything we mentioned above?

On one hand, automation can help businesses to save time and resources. Personalization, on the other hand, can help to create a more relevant and engaging customer experience. But what happens when you combine the two?

By successfully combining automation and personalization with AI marketing, businesses can reap some significant benefits. 

For starters, they can increase operational efficiency while still delivering a highly personalized customer experience. They can also gain a deeper understanding of their customers’ needs and preferences, which can lead to more effective marketing campaigns. 

And perhaps most importantly, they can stay ahead of the competition by using the latest technology to deliver a truly unique customer experience.

Here are four tips on how to strike that perfect balance.

Consider What Areas Need Optimization

Don’t just start looking for AI tools to use without understanding how or why you’ll use them. Instead, consider what areas of your business need optimization. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Which processes take the most time?
• Which processes waste the most time unnecessarily?
• Which processes do employees seem to dislike the most?
• Are there areas in your business where you notice a lack of productivity?
• Are there areas in your business that customers complain a lot about?

Think about those factors and consider how you can use AI tools to help improve efficiency in those areas. This will ensure that you’re getting the most out of your investment in artificial intelligence.

Likewise, it will help you understand how to most effectively utilize the tools you choose. What might this look like?

Let’s say you’ve identified the fact that your software’s sales team is constantly calling poorly-qualified leads. This wastes their time and reduces your revenue. With an AI-powered CRM, you could have the AI tools in the software automate the analysis of those leads.

Instead of having your salespeople perform those administrative tasks, they’ll spend more time contacting leads that your AI bots have identified as highly-qualified. Likewise, because you’re using AI in marketing, you can craft a better, more-targeted sales pitch. It’s a win-win!

Assess Customer Experiences

Take a look at different touchpoints during the customer journey with your brand. Are there points where customer experiences are particularly poor or slow? If so, this might be a place where you’d want to introduce artificial intelligence!

For example, let’s assume people love your software but find that onboarding process to be outdated. They also think it’s difficult to navigate and understand. In this case, AI might make sense. 

You can personalize the onboarding flow and messaging to ensure you’ve got custom messaging set up at every point where you see customers getting stuck. This might look like a smart chatbot popping up for assistance, for example.

Likewise, you can also use AI marketing tools, in this case, to assess what you’re currently doing right in regards to customer experience! If something is working well, AI-powered tools can help you identify that so you can do more of it.

Personalize Your Messaging

Finally, make sure to always personalize your marketing messaging. 

When it comes to artificial intelligence marketing, it’s best to automate campaigns but personalize the messaging. This helps ensure that you’ll never publish anything that feels 100% robot-generated and tone-deaf.

So, work to first define your message. Then, define your method. Lean on AI-generated data and analytics to inform that message. Don’t let AI craft that message, though. 

In this context, personalization looks similar to how it looks in any other area of regular marketing (AI or not). 

A personalized marketing message is one that is specifically tailored to the recipient. This could be based on their personal interests, demographics, or behavior.

To achieve a balance between automation and personalization, you can first segment your audience into different groups based on their characteristics. This could be based on factors such as age, gender, location, or interests. Once you have segmented your audience, you can then create personalized messages for each group.

You can also personalize your marketing messages by creating messaging for individual customer profiles. This could include information such as purchase history, browsing behavior, or demographic data. You can then use this data to create personalized messages that are relevant to each customer. 

When it comes down to it, the right AI tools and marketing team will be able to help you craft the right message. Make sure it’s personalized enough so that when you automate your marketing tasks or campaigns, it makes sense every time it gets in front of a customer or potential lead.

Bridge the Brand Gap With Brandhouse

Incorporating AI marketing into your overall digital strategy is only one component of success. 

After all, a strategy is an informed opinion about how to win. A good strategy is just a fantasy until you make it come true. We can help you make it come true. 

Get in touch today to chat about working together. We’re excited to learn about your business and help you transform your brand using innovation and imagination.

Click here to schedule your free 30-minute consultation.