AI for Marketing: A SWOT Analysis
It’s time we addressed the elephant in the room, the huge, technical elephant: artificial intelligence (AI). There aren’t too many places you can turn nowadays where businesses and brands aren’t using some form of AI, but instead of having you sit here and read a whole spiel about how the future of AI has just begun and that this big elephant isn’t trotting away anytime soon, let’s have a look at what it looks like in the marketing landscape, real-life examples, key considerations, pros and cons, and whether it’s right for you and your business. We’ll also provide our own SWOT analysis near the end.
Developing AI is no small task. It takes countless hours of strategy, planning, and coding from software developers and engineers. After all, you’re taking a system and replicating human intelligence to empower it to think like a human being, so it involves writing more than just a few lines of Python to master it.
Now, let’s look at a few real-life examples of AI currently in practice today.
These are some of the top five ways brands are using AI that we think are important.
This is probably the most obvious example. Chatbots are what a lot of people think of when they think of AI. More specifically, customer service chat assistants are a form of conversational communication that programmers develop to collect data from customers and answer complex questions, often without the need for a human representative.
You may think to yourself, “How can anyone have typos on anything anymore now with all the spelling and grammar checkers out there?” While we can’t answer that question, we can tell you that AI algorithms today use machine learning and “natural language processing” to identify errors in your writing, and some tools even offer suggestions to maintain better clarity and flow within your writing.
Who else remembers that classic dog face filter on Snapchat? Facial recognition involves AI using computer visioning to detect and analyze facial features. So, the virtual filters you see on social media and those apps that tell you what your baby will look like are in fact more forms of AI doing its thing in our daily lives.
Oh, yeah. AI has even gone so far as to manage your money. Financial institutions now use digital financial services through AI to offer robo-advising by collecting a few key details about customers, such as their income, goals, and risk tolerance to build an investment strategy. Now you can invest without even having to lift a finger. You’ll get automated notifications about new transactions, transfers, and purchases through an AI-assisted portfolio manager.
Go on Google right now, and type in, “Is smiling contagious?” Spoiler alert: it is. You’ll then notice that Google’s AI Overview feature uses a featured snippet to display the most relevant answer to your query and summarizes your desired results into short, digestible paragraphs or bullets.
As a marketer, you may be here to learn more about how you can personally use AI to enhance your products or services or level up your content. It can be used for different facets of your marketing department, from web support to content writing to search engine optimization (SEO).
So let’s take a look at a few key areas.
The use of AI can help streamline your software engineers’ testing and debugging process on the backend. Certain tools assist with automatically identifying errors and bugs within code, security vulnerabilities, and more. This enables faster solutions for your web team and improves the quality of their system. Recombee, an AI-powered recommendation engine, is what we use for our blogs. This allows us to easily recommend related blogs on a specific blog page. Another area that our developers have touched on is AI-powered search through tools like Algolia and behavioral analysis tools like Hotjar.
We’re also familiar with AI tools that help streamline the web design and development process from the front end. We use AI for processes such as generating long-form content within the design being built that replaces Lorum Ipsum and stripping markup if we’re porting over components. Other front-end usages for AI include code compilers, generators like Title Case for changing content to utilize different naming conventions, and more. AI is also useful when generating client-specific data models to prototype the front end of websites because it helps streamline the process so that our front-end developer can successfully build components to any specific variation of final content, removing any surprises when transferring a website into a content management system.
Yes, here’s our first mention of ChatGPT, the AI chatbot that uses machine-learning algorithms and natural language processors to generate dialogue and content to help your team of content creators. By using AI for your writing, it can help inspire topic ideas and unique headlines, and you can also utilize it to help jump-start ideas for an upcoming campaign.
Your SEO strategy just got a boost with AI. Many tools that you use for keyword research use AI to help you find relevant keywords on topics that are most relevant to you and score them based on popularity and search difficulty. Plus, it helps with data analysis in many ways, one of which is by honing in on important consumer behavior and pinpointing opportunities to optimize your content and advertising to reach potential customers.
Utilizing AI for your ads can help target consumers based on their demographics and psychographics. It can also be used to predict the likelihood of a specific event happening, allowing marketers to predict the performance of their campaigns and optimize their strategy and budget accordingly.
We didn’t want you to think we left out the creative gurus from this list. AI can even help graphic designers in ways such as resizing images, background optimization, applying unique design concepts, recognizing font and color issues, and more.
While AI can help alleviate some tasks and streamline your workflow, be weary of some of the risks involved with relying on it too much.
AI often raises concerns regarding privacy and security. Many marketers have raised eyebrows regarding AI’s swift ability to collect important user data that can lead the way for cyberattacks, identity theft, and more.
Your content team specifically should minimize their use of AI tools like ChatGPT if they wish to keep their brain creatively sharp. They may lose some of their creativity if they rely too heavily on copy generators. And even with AI’s ability to collect customer data to help generate relevant content, the level of human intelligence on certain projects is something you shouldn’t overlook.
If you want your customers to trust you, you need to practice ethical marketing. With the use of AI in the digital world, it could raise ethical concerns. You need to ensure that AI tools comply with data protection and privacy regulations and that they don’t cause legal concerns that could lead to unintentional biases, discrimination, or invasions of privacy.
One of the most obvious concerns about using AI in too many practices is the question whether or not everything it generates is factually accurate. Always cross-check what AI provides you with your own human intelligence and research. Even with today’s advanced machine-learning algorithms and technologies, not everything that’s AI-driven is correct.
As a quick guide, we put together our own SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis on AI. Check it out below.
As we said before, AI comes with a list of advantages, but it also comes with things you need to be wary of before you hop on the bandwagon. Or if you’re already using it in some way, this is an opportunity for you to look at how you’re currently using it and answer these questions:
Need a lift in your marketing game plan? Our team knows the ins and outs of web, design, content, and anything else you need to go from good to great in your ROI strategy. If you’re ready to unleash the power of a partner to create a masterpiece that encapsulates all that your brand has to offer, contact us today to get started!
Developing AI is no small task. It takes countless hours of strategy, planning, and coding from software developers and engineers. After all, you’re taking a system and replicating human intelligence to empower it to think like a human being, so it involves writing more than just a few lines of Python to master it.
Now, let’s look at a few real-life examples of AI currently in practice today.
5 Ways Brands Are Using AI
These are some of the top five ways brands are using AI that we think are important.
Chatbots
This is probably the most obvious example. Chatbots are what a lot of people think of when they think of AI. More specifically, customer service chat assistants are a form of conversational communication that programmers develop to collect data from customers and answer complex questions, often without the need for a human representative.
Spell Checkers
You may think to yourself, “How can anyone have typos on anything anymore now with all the spelling and grammar checkers out there?” While we can’t answer that question, we can tell you that AI algorithms today use machine learning and “natural language processing” to identify errors in your writing, and some tools even offer suggestions to maintain better clarity and flow within your writing.
Facial Recognition
Who else remembers that classic dog face filter on Snapchat? Facial recognition involves AI using computer visioning to detect and analyze facial features. So, the virtual filters you see on social media and those apps that tell you what your baby will look like are in fact more forms of AI doing its thing in our daily lives.
Financial Advisors
Oh, yeah. AI has even gone so far as to manage your money. Financial institutions now use digital financial services through AI to offer robo-advising by collecting a few key details about customers, such as their income, goals, and risk tolerance to build an investment strategy. Now you can invest without even having to lift a finger. You’ll get automated notifications about new transactions, transfers, and purchases through an AI-assisted portfolio manager.
Google Search
Go on Google right now, and type in, “Is smiling contagious?” Spoiler alert: it is. You’ll then notice that Google’s AI Overview feature uses a featured snippet to display the most relevant answer to your query and summarizes your desired results into short, digestible paragraphs or bullets.
How Can Marketers Leverage AI?
As a marketer, you may be here to learn more about how you can personally use AI to enhance your products or services or level up your content. It can be used for different facets of your marketing department, from web support to content writing to search engine optimization (SEO).
So let’s take a look at a few key areas.
Web Development & Design
The use of AI can help streamline your software engineers’ testing and debugging process on the backend. Certain tools assist with automatically identifying errors and bugs within code, security vulnerabilities, and more. This enables faster solutions for your web team and improves the quality of their system. Recombee, an AI-powered recommendation engine, is what we use for our blogs. This allows us to easily recommend related blogs on a specific blog page. Another area that our developers have touched on is AI-powered search through tools like Algolia and behavioral analysis tools like Hotjar.
We’re also familiar with AI tools that help streamline the web design and development process from the front end. We use AI for processes such as generating long-form content within the design being built that replaces Lorum Ipsum and stripping markup if we’re porting over components. Other front-end usages for AI include code compilers, generators like Title Case for changing content to utilize different naming conventions, and more. AI is also useful when generating client-specific data models to prototype the front end of websites because it helps streamline the process so that our front-end developer can successfully build components to any specific variation of final content, removing any surprises when transferring a website into a content management system.
Content Marketing
Yes, here’s our first mention of ChatGPT, the AI chatbot that uses machine-learning algorithms and natural language processors to generate dialogue and content to help your team of content creators. By using AI for your writing, it can help inspire topic ideas and unique headlines, and you can also utilize it to help jump-start ideas for an upcoming campaign.
SEO
Your SEO strategy just got a boost with AI. Many tools that you use for keyword research use AI to help you find relevant keywords on topics that are most relevant to you and score them based on popularity and search difficulty. Plus, it helps with data analysis in many ways, one of which is by honing in on important consumer behavior and pinpointing opportunities to optimize your content and advertising to reach potential customers.
Advertising
Utilizing AI for your ads can help target consumers based on their demographics and psychographics. It can also be used to predict the likelihood of a specific event happening, allowing marketers to predict the performance of their campaigns and optimize their strategy and budget accordingly.
Graphic Design
We didn’t want you to think we left out the creative gurus from this list. AI can even help graphic designers in ways such as resizing images, background optimization, applying unique design concepts, recognizing font and color issues, and more.
What Marketers Should Avoid with AI
While AI can help alleviate some tasks and streamline your workflow, be weary of some of the risks involved with relying on it too much.
Data Privacy
AI often raises concerns regarding privacy and security. Many marketers have raised eyebrows regarding AI’s swift ability to collect important user data that can lead the way for cyberattacks, identity theft, and more.
Lack of Creativity
Your content team specifically should minimize their use of AI tools like ChatGPT if they wish to keep their brain creatively sharp. They may lose some of their creativity if they rely too heavily on copy generators. And even with AI’s ability to collect customer data to help generate relevant content, the level of human intelligence on certain projects is something you shouldn’t overlook.
Ethical/Legal Concerns
If you want your customers to trust you, you need to practice ethical marketing. With the use of AI in the digital world, it could raise ethical concerns. You need to ensure that AI tools comply with data protection and privacy regulations and that they don’t cause legal concerns that could lead to unintentional biases, discrimination, or invasions of privacy.
Factual Inaccuracies
One of the most obvious concerns about using AI in too many practices is the question whether or not everything it generates is factually accurate. Always cross-check what AI provides you with your own human intelligence and research. Even with today’s advanced machine-learning algorithms and technologies, not everything that’s AI-driven is correct.
An AI Swot Analysis
As a quick guide, we put together our own SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis on AI. Check it out below.
Should You Use AI?
As we said before, AI comes with a list of advantages, but it also comes with things you need to be wary of before you hop on the bandwagon. Or if you’re already using it in some way, this is an opportunity for you to look at how you’re currently using it and answer these questions:
- What tool(s) am I currently using?
- Why am I using them?
- How are they helping me, my team, and my customers?
- Is the way I’m using them ethical?
- If I wasn’t using these tools, could I still perform my job at a high level?
Connect with Us
Need a lift in your marketing game plan? Our team knows the ins and outs of web, design, content, and anything else you need to go from good to great in your ROI strategy. If you’re ready to unleash the power of a partner to create a masterpiece that encapsulates all that your brand has to offer, contact us today to get started!