Is now a good time to use AI as a primary marketing tool?
Artificial Intelligence has been on top of the heated topics over the past years and it still not a cliché to bring up AI as a promising way to facilitate businesses from various aspects. Marketing, being the foremost consideration for most of the businesses, has welcomed countless trials of AI and parallel new technologies. Currently, it is still attractive to hear about new applications of AI-enabled marketing and public propaganda.
A Key Contribution of AI: Content Production and Communication
Artificial Intelligence has been tentatively applied in almost every possible aspect we could think of as a bold and pervasive trial by marketers from different industries. With pros and cons being argued, and most of them still being tested, there are several contributions that AI could practically deliver as a mature and adaptable way for all marketers.
Smart Insights presented with a vivid diagram showing a full chain of modern marketing and had the entire lifecycle categorized by three newly emerged tools: machine learning, propensity model, and AI application respectively. As the AI in marketing topic is my primary focus here, the three red circles are particularly worth discussion.
AI-generated content is the most practical function delivered by artificial intelligence. With basic principles and prior case experiences being learned by the AI system, it is amazing to see how AI could generate plausible yet different content from time to time in accordance with what the market may potentially need. Compared to employing heavy labors for content drafting as well as quality management, it is economic for a marketer to adopt AI for a massive content generation with satisfying quality and competitive marketing impact.
Voice search is the second-most eye-catching function that has emerged and widely adopted my smartphones, automobile vehicles and interactive devices in various scenarios. AI systems are taught with different accents and tones in certain languages so that keywords and proper language use could be identified quickly into verbal messages before starting the next-stage searching. Should there be functional AI products in voice search, not only will the marketers save significant customer service staff costs, but it also greatly alleviated the time and efforts necessary for potential clients. Adopting a simple and quick voice search cast no requirement on occasion, time and places whenever an inquiry arises; in comparison, making phone calls or visiting physical stores demands strongly from potential clients and would thusly cut down purchasing behavior drastically.
Chatbots might be the most obvious change in marketing and customer service in recent years. With automated messages generated the first very moment of our visit on official websites, numerous options are provided in response to customer’s inquiry. AI has learned to list proper menus and respond according to keywords as well as longer sentences so as to take over as much of the service work as possible from the frontline of customer interaction.
How Expansive AI Marketing is Being Developed
Currently, AI marketing is presented as a multi-aspect concept that contains machine learning, big data, and powerful solutions altogether to marketers as well as to the customers in the market. Nevertheless, it is not the intricate knowledge system or tools that drive people’s purchase decision, rather, it should be the gradual and smooth customer experience that effectively drive people to the behavior all marketers desire.
Twinword has demonstrated the current AI marketing area into a vivid infographics with core benefits and adoptions in different sectors. Two of the major information revealed from this graph are worth considering deeper. Approximately 41% of the reports showed that AI has increased its total revenue, and how a brand new customer journey has become a semi-loop by AI technologies.
To my best understanding, a marketing tool could be deemed as effective only when it brings a positive effect on overall profit or branding effect, or ideally both. AI marketing is now creating a more impactful customer experience cycle with a proven increase in revenue, meanwhile, application of AI system reduces the necessity of heavy labor employment and it is to further facilitate cost-saving for business runners. From both sides, it seems more than optimistic for a marketer to plunge into AI marketing with all the positive feedbacks from the current market.
However, should we really be this optimistic? My personal opinion is no.
Is this a great time to fully adopt AI marketing?
Many of us may probably heard about the Gartner Hype Cycle as it marks how a certain product or technology caters to our current lives. While some may seem promising and well-known to the public, it may need years of time before mature manufacturing or functioning products to cater to real market needs. AI marketing, as a significant part of the digital marketing and advertising industry, is proved to be still on top of the peak of inflated expectations. The market may need 5 to 10 years before they could see a real fruition delivered by AI marketing tools.
The Gartner Hype Cycle for Digital Marketing and Advertising gathered major adoptions in the realm of digital marketing in accordance with their times before reaching the plateau of productivity. With shoppable media, native advertising, influencer, and advocacy marketing, and social analytics being identified as four adoptions that will reach the plateau of productivity within 2 years, all the rests in the digital marketing realm are still premature.
Take one’s personal experience as an example, how many times were we truly persuaded by AI-generated marketing content and made a purchasing decision? How often were we practically use voice search while we could simply use smartphones to search with verbal information? How likely were we to be fully satisfied by chatbots with their pre-programmed responses and freedom of further actions?
Most of us would give answers to the aforementioned questions with three ‘no’s with our personal experience and best memories. It is unarguable that if AI marketing could actually do those works, it would be the best option for all marketers only if their practicing areas could use the very technology. Yet the reality cast a huge question mark on its effectiveness and persuasiveness.
My opinion toward a wide application of AI marketing is negative primarily because the concept could still not make a strong case in persuading people and interact with customer’s further needs. The Gartner Hype Cycle further facilitated my opinion with in-depth analysis and market analysis. Should there be, in 5 to 10 years, a smarter and more effective AI that could finally interact with people with much broader capability, it is good timing for all marketers to go with AI marketing. Yet the time is not now.
