In 2021, lots of internet gurus believe that artificial intelligence will be the driving force behind most marketing decisions.
Mitch Earll Account Analyst
Artificial intelligence has been a sensitive/controversial subject for the past few years. We have seen this display of insecurity of the American population front and center on the silver screen over the past couple of decades in cinema. Movies like Ex Machina, Her, Minority Report, iRobot, and even Blade Runner present us with the possible dangers that accelerated machine learning could bring forth in the near future.
Now I know that these are just movies, but it still makes you wonder...
Consider this: in 2016 alone, according to Nielson, over $500 billion was invested in AI research and development worldwide. Think about what that capital has been able to uncover in the r&d departments of the top tech companies over the past 5 years that we still haven't seen come to market...
So now think, what does this mean for marketers? In a word: opportunity -- The future of digital marketing is going to be shaped by how you use your understanding of AI techniques to create personalized customer experiences across multiple channels.
We have already seen major growth in the existing applications of AI in the digital world. But are they all good? Let's go down this rabbit hole a bit deeper together.
Automated Chatbots
Nowadays, it seems like everyone and their mothers have a chatbot on their website to help with streamlining sales or to aid users in the navigation of their site. However, this wasn't so common 10-15 years ago. In fact, the main driving force of the adaptation of chatbots on websites is the ease of use from the developmental side of things.
Website building platforms like WordPress and Wix have come a long way in the past decade. What I mean by this is functionalities like chatbots, are much easier to integrate with your website as APIs or plugins than ever before.
Chatbots are artificial intelligence that can talk to consumers, answer their questions and give them advice. Chatbot technology is being used for many different purposes including customer service, education, healthcare, etc.
There are a number of reasons why chatbots have become popular with marketers and other businesses - the primary reason being that they reduce workloads by providing a natural, interactive platform that people can use to get information or complete tasks. To put it simply:
Chatbots allow marketers and other businesses to save time by not having to manually answer customer questions and provide the same content over again.
Chatbots are an artificial intelligence technology that is free of bias which means it will be able to help all different types of people, regardless of their background or beliefs.
Chatbots are artificial intelligence that can talk to consumers and answer their questions - which means they're available around the clock.
Although chatbot technology is a lot different than what we might be used to when it comes to communicating with businesses, there's no doubt that artificial intelligence will have an impact on the way we interact with companies and brands in 2021.
Voice-Search Functions
I know lots of people are afraid of both Siri and Alexa.
To be frank, it freaks me out when someone around is talking about a product, service, or show and somehow I get served an ad about that very same subject that was previously being mentioned moments later.
It feels like a major breach of privacy.
However, despite my personal feelings, according to a recent study, 58% of consumers have used a voice search feature to find local business information in the past 12 months! I guess most people aren’t as freaked out as I tend to be.
To put it simply, I think the reason this type of search function is gaining steam is that artificial intelligence improves customer experience by being able to interact with customers in real-time. As humans, we desire instant gratification - this provides that to a higher degree than ever before.
What's really shocking is how realistic these types of features have become - look at this video from 2018 that showcases Google’s AI assistant scheduling a hair appointment and making a reservation for a restaurant.
Content Writing & Keyword Research
If you’re an SEO-junkie, you know how necessary blogging is to help rank your website organically. From this need for long-form content, multiple AI writing-aid softwares have come to market. Here are a few to choose from:
Jarvis (My Personal Favorite)
Now, these softwares can't exactly write with perfect grammar, but they can aid you if you’re struggling with finding a good topic to write about (keywords), trying to structure your writing into more digestible pieces (ease of navigation), and even integrate with SEO ranking softwares, like SurferSEO, to let you know where your article stacks up against the competition (organic ranking). If you work in digital marketing - you know that proper planning is crucial to the success of a campaign. Artificial intelligence has become an important tool in helping companies refine their target audiences and create more personalized content. By analyzing data sets, artificial intelligence is able to provide insight into who your customers are so you can serve them better through customized products or services.
Artificial intelligence is a powerful tool for gathering and analyzing information to make predictions. It can automate tedious tasks like keyword research or web crawling, which allows business owners more time to focus on what matters most: their customers!
Key Take-Aways
At the end of the day, it is an exciting time to be alive. New ways to implement artificial intelligence have reshaped the way we think about artificial intelligence overall and automated high-converting copywriting, and it will continue to do so for years to come. In 2021 artificial intelligence will have a significant effect on digital marketing as we know it.
You will always have people like Elon Musk who is against artificial intelligence because of the potential dangers it could present. However, I'm not too worried. I don't think robots will take over the world, at least not in my lifetime. I think the upside outweighs the downside in both the short term and in the long run.
PS - Jarvis helped me write a portion of this blog - can you guess which part?