Unlocking the Power of AI Marketing: Top Uses, Benefits and Must-Have Tools
Published on November 18, 2024
These days, it might feel like you can’t go anywhere or do anything without hearing about AI. But for most marketers, AI is more than the latest buzzword – it’s a game-changing tool that helps them do their job faster and more efficiently.
Whether it’s by automating recurring tasks, pulling insights from large datasets, or assisting in creative activities, AI is well on its way to becoming a key asset in every marketer's toolkit.
If you think that’s a bold statement, well know that nearly 40% of marketing and advertising professionals report using AI in their daily workflows. This widespread adoption is clear proof that AI is far from just being a passing trend.
But what exactly does AI bring to the table for marketing, and how can you tap into its full potential? Let’s dive deeper into how AI is being used in marketing, explore its key benefits, and explore some of the most popular AI tools that are making waves in the marketing sector.
What is AI in marketing?
AI marketing refers to the use of AI technology in all areas of marketing, from data analysis and virtual assistants to automated content creation. There are two main types of AI technology used most commonly in marketing: predictive AI and generative AI.
Predictive AI draws its power from machine learning and deep learning to identify trends and patterns and makes predictions based on the historical data it collects. It’s often used to anticipate customer behavior based on their previous buying patterns and engagement history.
In this way, predictive AI can help marketers focus their efforts (such as upselling opportunities or personalized offers, for instance) on customers who are more likely to make a purchase or perform any other desired action.
Generative AI, on the other hand, helps creators generate fresh content based on existing data. From creating unique visuals to drafting social media captions and video scripts, summarizing content (text, audio & video), outlining blog posts, and crafting ad creatives, AI can streamline the whole content creation process while still allowing marketers to add their own personal touch.
How is AI used in marketing?
AI is quickly making strides in many areas of digital marketing, driving tangible results that inspire more companies to welcome this technology with open arms.
We’ve mentioned some of the ways in which AI is used in marketing, but let’s have a closer look at its top applications and the impact they have:
Personalized advertising
One of the ways in which AI is revolutionizing marketing practices is by helping with customer segmentation. By analyzing customer data such as purchase history, buying patterns, and demographic information, AI tools help marketers learn more about their target audience. This enables them to create more accurate customer profiles and ultimately offer personalized product recommendations, tailored email content, or targeted ads to individual users.
Real-life example: Netflix's online streaming platform uses AI to analyze every user’s viewing history and recommend shows and movies based on this data.
AI Content Creation
By far one of the most popular (and powerful!) applications of AI in marketing is in content creation. By using AI to create text, images, or videos based on the user’s input, marketers can save a lot of time and focus their efforts on more strategic tasks.
Though using AI for start-to-finish content creation is not recommended, marketing professionals can still let content creation AI tools assist in a wide variety of creative tasks, such as drafting captions for video content or social media posts, outlining blog posts, generating ideas for website content, email campaigns, paid ads, and even creating ready-to-share videos using AI or stock footage. This allows them to create content at scale quickly and more easily tailor their content to resonate with a wide audience.
Real-life example: Flixer’s AI video script generator helps you skip endless brainstorming sessions and craft clear, easy-to-follow scripts for your videos with just a prompt. The text to speech AI tool can transform text into a fluent voiceover in any language using human-like AI voices, removing the need for you to record yourself or rely on voice actors.
Task Automation
Marketing roles are becoming more complex and diverse, yet many still involve a lot of time-consuming, repetitive tasks that eat up valuable hours. By automating tasks such as social media scheduling, email workflows, meeting summaries, customer support responses, report generation, and data entry, marketers can free up time to focus on high-impact tasks that require their full creativity and expertise.
Real-life example: Many global brands use AI to keep an eye on their social media channels in real-time, monitoring customer sentiment, brand mentions, and trending topics. With this type of automation, they have instant access to customer feedback and potential issues, allowing them to solve any potential crises before they escalate.
How is AI transforming the marketing sector?
If you weren’t already aware, then by now, you’ve surely realized that AI is changing – and, dare I say – improving marketing in big ways. Here are five powerful ways AI is helping the marketing sector grow and thrive (and five reasons why you should consider giving it a chance):
Efficiency – With AI taking the lead, you can get more in less time and with fewer resources.
Cost reduction – By targeting more accurately, AI cuts down on trial and error, ensuring your marketing budget is spent on what really works.
Smarter decision-making – AI turns big data into actionable insights, minimizing guesswork and helping you make smarter marketing choices.
Content personalization – AI taps into customer data to create content that’s perfectly suited to each user’s preferences, boosting engagement and customer retention.
Adaptability – With AI’s speed and efficiency, you get a real-time view of your campaign’s performance and can make adjustments on the fly.
Top AI tools for marketing teams
No matter what marketing task you’re tackling, there’s likely an AI tool that can help. In recent years, many platforms and tools have integrated AI features, completely changing the way marketing teams handle their research, content creation, or administrative tasks.
Here are a few of the popular AI tools to consider:
ChatGPT
Otherwise known as the mothership of AI tools, this AI chatbot can help marketers with a massive variety of tasks based on their prompts. Ideal for drafting blog posts, writing social media captions, refining existing content, generating email copy, or brainstorming creative ideas.
SurferSEO
This AI tool makes ranking for search engines easy by evaluating and scoring your content according to its keyword density, length, readability, and other key SEO aspects. Based on your niche and target audience, SurferSEO can offer relevant suggestions and actionable insights for top-ranking keywords and content structure.
Zapier
Zapier is a powerful AI-enhanced tool for automating workflows across multiple apps and systems. Whether you’re managing social media posts, email campaigns, or customer data, Zapier ensures that the right data is pulled from the right places.
Honorable Mention: Flixier
If you’ve been using Flixier as your trusted online video editor for a while, you’ve probably noticed how much it’s improved your video editing workflow. But have you had the chance to meet its younger sibling – FlixierAI?
That’s right, Flixier has hopped on the AI bandwagon and added a range of AI-powered features that make video editing a breeze. Our AI video editor and AI audio enhancer are just the start.
Here’s the twist, though: we’ve gone beyond video and added a few tools that help you with other aspects of content creation. For instance, you can now create unique visuals from a simple script, generate realistic AI voiceovers from text, or even put together an entire video using AI or stock footage – without needing to record your own clips or audio.
The future of AI marketing
With the way things are shaping up, the role of AI in digital marketing will continue expanding. Used responsibly and coupled with human expertise and creativity, it’s an incredibly powerful tool designed to help anyone create impactful content, bring in more traffic, attract customers, and unleash their creativity—all while keeping things ethical.
About the author
Andreea UdescuContent writer with over 6 experience in digital marketing. When she's not deep in the writing zone, you'll find her on coffee dates with friends, writing poems, or taking photographs on film. Because all the best stories need a little caffeine, creativity, and color.
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