The future of work is here.
Everywhere you look, new programs and tools are making employees more efficient, introducing new freelance working opportunities, and transforming businesses.
One of the most disruptive new technologies in this environment is artificial intelligence (AI). Once regarded as little more than a sci-fi concept, artificial intelligence is now a common companion in our daily lives. It helps to dictate what kind of ad copy we see when we’re browsing online and suggests movies to watch on Netflix.
AI is even having a resounding impact on the creative world, supporting businesses in creating the content that appeals most to their target audience.
Whether you’re a content marketing pro or a business leader, here’s your guide to how the future of content marketing and AI will align.
The Rise of Artificial Intelligence in Content Marketing
Artificial intelligence is already a powerful tool in many content applications. Demandbase learned that 18% of marketers are already using AI in their tech stack, and this number is primed for growth. More than 80% of CEOs believe that AI is extremely important to their digital transformation.
The way that artificial intelligence impacts content marketing depends on the kind of AI that you’re looking at. For instance, AI is just a general term that describes how computer programs and machines can mimic human behavior and thinking. AI can sort through information and perform different actions with minimal interaction.
However, there are also subsections of AI out there, like machine learning and deep-learning. These tools allow computers to recognize patterns of information and learn from there. Machine learning and deep learning also have a part to play in the changing state of content marketing.
Let’s take a closer look at just some of the ways content marketing and artificial intelligence are already working side-by-side.
1. Improving Content Marketing Research
Speak to any content writer or marketing expert, and they’ll tell you that they don’t spend most of their time writing – they’re constantly researching instead. Today’s content producers need to make sure that they’re delivering the best, most accurate information to readers. Unfortunately, this search for information takes up a lot of time.
Basic AI technology can easily search through data on a content marketer’s behalf, looking for keywords, phrases, and statistics that are suitable for the topic at hand. In the years to come, we expect to have more AI tools in place for tracking down valuable resources for content.
2. Updated Interactions
Did you know that the average person receives around 140 emails each day? That’s a lot of content swarming our inboxes. Yet for many companies, email is still the best way to interact with their target audience. The key to a successful interaction on any platform is the right content or message.
Artificial intelligence can collect information about customers, to provide better personas for today’s marketing teams to work with. This could even mean making suggestions on the kind of language and offers that a customer is more likely to respond to. Machine learning elements in the same technology could become increasingly valuable as they learn more about what causes a customer to respond to a message or pay attention to a marketing announcement online.
3. Personalization at Scale
One of the biggest benefits of AI in the content marketing world, is that it can analyze huge amounts of data extremely quickly. Unlike human beings, bots have the potential to scan through tons of data in seconds, interpreting meaningless words, and transforming them into insights that marketing teams can use. With the right AI, you can learn how to adjust your marketing campaigns to suit different segments of your target audience.
There are even AI and content automation tools that can automatically deliver the right dynamic content in an ad depending on the profile of the person who appears on a website!
4. Efficient Publishing
Speaking of automation and intelligent writing, artificial intelligence can also support content marketing by ensuring the right messages appear for your audience at the best times. Different audience groups are more likely to be active at certain times of day. Your AI and analytical tools can assess which members of your communications are likely to be available at certain times.
This means that your tools can also deliver suggestions on when to publish specific pieces of content to get the most attention from your clients. You can even set up content marketing calendars that publish pieces automatically.
5. Improved Content Quality
Finally, one of the biggest concerns of many content marketing gurus is figuring out how to speak to both customers, and search engines at the same time. Creating valuable content is great, but it’s not much good if your users can’t find it. Tools that can assess the content that you produce for SEO signals, like keywords, links, and more, can make it easier to rank.
Already, there are countless tools out there that business leaders can use to assess the quality of content from an SEO perspective. At the same time, there are also AI-enhanced tools that can scan documents in seconds to check for things like grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. These pieces of the software ensure that every piece you publish is optimized for people and search engines.
What does the future hold for content marketing?
As the world of work continues to change, with things like remote working and video conferencing, IoT, and artificial intelligence, it’s safe to say the future is bright.
Unfortunately, there are still some people around the world today who are concerned about what the adoption of new technology might mean for the creative industry. For instance, according to the Verge, the Associated Press has used AI algorithms to generate up to 3000 stories every quarter. Does this mean that bots could one-day replace content marketers?
Not necessarily. AI technology is becoming more sophisticated, but it’s still only capable of creating considerably essential content. Bots don’t have the creativity required to create truly thought-provoking opinion pieces. We still need human beings to add the heart and soul to content that really appeals to today’s online audience.
Companies shouldn’t see AI as a replacement for humans in the years to come, but as a valuable tool for taking content strategies to the next level.
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