Artificial Intelligence and Content Marketing in 2017

7 AI Implications for Your Marketing Strategy

Sasha Laferte

Some futurists believe as artificial intelligence (AI) becomes smarter, it will lead to a technological singularity: humans and machines melding into one digital, biological entity. Such an explosion of intelligence would lead to an entirely new way of life.

This prediction isn’t fantastical. Computer scientists forecast that by 2029 AI could be at about the level of intelligence of adult humans. In October 2016 the US National Science and Technology Council released their first ever document on preparing for the future of artificial intelligence. This document outlines the potential impact AI could have on the world economically, including an increase in the wage gap—and significant job reduction.

A quick Google search for “Content Marketing and Artificial Intelligence” reveals how big a concern this is. Top results include: Will Artificial Intelligence Kill Content Marketing?, Will Artificial Intelligence (AI) Take Over Content Marketing? and Is Artificial Intelligence Taking Over Content Marketing?

For now, AI isn’t causing a robot apocalypse, or even taking marketing jobs, although a study at Karlstads University determined that people are not able to tell the difference between content written by journalists and those generated by software. AI does however, hold significance as a content marketing trend for 2017.

As digital behemoths acquire AI companies and start bringing the technology to a wider audience, AI is changing the course of the content marketing industry. Among other things, AI is starting to eliminate the need for manual messaging and segmentation, is optimizing the personalization and automation features of content strategy, and driving predictive lead scoring and data analysis at the click of a mouse.

This article details seven ways AI is impacting content marketing, and how you can adapt for 2017 and beyond.

1. Content Creation

Journalist robots are already creating millions of pieces of basic sports content for the Associated Press, as well as Samsung, Comcast, and Yahoo. This technology can create content at a rate of 2,000 pieces per second, and as it improves, robots will become capable of creating more complicated content. Right now however, there are limited programs available for the average content marketer, but what is available saves time on simpler writing tasks so you can devote more time to more meaningful projects. Some examples include WorldAI, Automated Insight’s Wordsmith, and Narrative Science.

2. Empathy and Personalization at Scale

According to Forrester, 40 percent of loyalty marketers struggle with personalization. Marketing automation software company Emarsys is addressing this challenge, announcing a new artificial intelligence-driven platform (Emarsys AIM) in November 2016 that aims to let marketers focus on one-to-one engagement and personalizationwith their customers at scale. Using over two billion Emarsys unified customer profiles, and enabled by AI that automates the timing, content, and communication channel, AIM removes the burden of operational and execution tasks, allowing marketers to focus more on strategy and content. This technology is already pointing marketers to start thinking of content in terms of how it can be personalized by AI software.

One example is WayBlazer, a cognitive travel platform using IBM Watson’s AI to personalize images, recommendations, and travel insights based on customer data. It illustrates how AI can make content intelligent for your audience, allowing you to focus on quality and more personalized messaging.

3. Easing the Transition From Email to Messaging

With the increasing popularity of messaging apps for the office such as Slack, Yammer, and HipChat, combined with messenger platforms such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, chat might be killing email.

There’s obvious appeal in receiving an immediate, custom answer from a company without dealing with the frustration and wasted time of waiting on the phone for a customer service representative. AI not only allows companies to create steadily better chat experiences at scale, but could allow for automated improvements to the product and business model at hand. Beer company IntelligentX Brewing is employing this tactic with AI that changes the recipe of its beer based on customer feedback given through a bot on Facebook.

Just as email, Twitter, and other mediums have impacted content creation, messaging is too. In the case of instant messaging marketing, company to customer messaging results in a quicker, more personalized content strategy, with a higher percentage of reach, and higher engagement and conversion rates.

4. Recommended Content

The Netflix Tech Blog says 75% of what people watch on Netflix is from an algorithm-generated recommendation. Facebook and Twitter are both investing in AI to help match users to relevant content.

Non-tech brands are starting to implement similar strategies for recommended content. According to artificial intelligence & machine learning think tank AI Business, activewear brand Under Armour is working with IBM Watson to combine “... user data from its record app with third-party data and research on fitness, nutrition etc. The result is the ability for the brand to offer up relevant training and lifecycle advice based on aggregated wisdom.”

Companies looking to create their own recommendation engine should investigate machine learning software such as Seldon, or software with a prepackaged recommendation engine such as Apptus, Clerk, or RichRelevance.  

5. Image Analysis

Facebook, Amazon, and Apple have all acquired image recognition AI software of some kind recently (Faciometrics, Orbeus, and Emotient respectively). Audience reaction measurement could open an entirely new way of thinking about how content success is measured and how marketers should engage their audience to interact with content. For example, this technology could enable you to measure the success of your next piece by basing it on how many people laughed or smiled while reading it.

6. Strategy and Data Analysis

IBM’s Deep Blue, a computer designed to beat chess master Garry Kasparov, lost when they battled in 1996. It beat him in the rematch in 1997. Since then, AI has become a commonplace tool to analyze data and inform strategy. Airbnb uses AI to determine how much a host should charge for a stay at their house based on the time of year, location, proximity to holidays and amount other lodging is charging in that area.

Adobe Sensei, launched in November 2016, is an example of how this concept can scale and influence marketing strategy. According to the Adobe website, Adobe Sensei:

... harnesses trillions of content and data assets—from high-resolution images to customer clicks—all within a unified AI and machine learning framework. From image matching across millions of assets, to understanding the meaning and sentiment of documents, to finely targeting important audience segments, Adobe Sensei does it all. Adobe Sensei crunches numbers and notifies you when it finds something interesting. Like a new look-alike audience that you should approach. Or a specific message that will resonate with a customer. And it also offers predictive modeling, so you can anticipate market changes and make better decisions."

Software such as Adobe Sensei has enormous potential to enable you to hone in on strategy and trends that are right for your organization.

7. Customer Success Improvements

Salesforce’s AI machine, Einstein, is geared toward improving customer success. The platform uses “advanced machine learning, deep learning, predictive analytics, natural language processing and smart data discovery” to optimize for each customer and their interactions with a company’s CRM. The aim is to give content marketers a better understanding of how your content impacts existing customers, and what you can due to pivot your strategy to support customer success.

As AI advances, it is enabling the rapid development of content intelligence to drive content marketing. (Read all about this new wave of content marketing technology here.) Content intelligence technology will move content strategy further away from foggy guesses and closer to exact prognosis, forecasting precisely what to create, and preemptively giving you the analytics you need, right down to predicting the revenue generated by a particular blog post. As computational creativity advances, maybe someone won’t need to predict the future of AI in a few years—AI could already have it covered.

The marketing mix: promotion

The role of promotion in the marketing mix
Promotion informs consumers about the rest of the marketing mix. Without it, consumers do not know about the product, the price, or the place. Promotion is more than just advertising, and it includes several activities. It is crucial when you are selling in a mass market or you have a brand name. Promotion includes:

• Advertisements: They can take different forms, e.g. on TV, in newspapers.
• Promotion: e.g. Money off coupons.
• Personal selling: Sending out sales representatives to talk directly to the consumers.
• Public relations: Involves making the public aware of the company, e.g. creating publicity in the media.

The aims of promotion

• To inform people about particular issues.
• To introduce new products to the market.
• To compete with competitors products.
• To improve the company/brand image.
• To increase sales.

Advertising
The advertising process

1. Set objectives: A business needs to determine the purpose of advertising.
2. Decide
   the
   advertising budget: Set a limit on how much the business can spend on advertising. It can be decided based on:
   1. A percentage of predicted sales revenue.
   2. How much competitors are spending.
   3. How much the business can afford.
3. Create an advertising campaign: Decide on what advertising campaign to run. Can be determined based on:
   1. Target audience.
   2. Objectives.
4. Select the media: Using the suitable media for advertising that is the most cost effective. E.g. TV, newspaper.
5. Evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign: Has the advertising met objectives?

Different types of advertising

• Informative advertising: Involves giving as much information about the product as possible. (e.g. computer)
• Persuasive advertising: Involves persuading consumers that they need the product and should buy it. (e.g. perfume)

Different media of advertising

Media	Advantages	Disadvantages	Examples
Television	·         Millions of people will see it. ·         The product can be presented in a very attractive way. ·         Easy to reach target audiences.	·         Expensive	·         Food ·         Cars ·         Household tools
Radio	·         Cheaper than TV. ·         Uses song or tune which makes ads memorable.	·         Cannot use visual message. ·         Expensive compared to others. ·         The advert has to be remembered. ·         Not as wide audience as TV	·         Local services ·         Shops
Newspaper	·         Can reach many people. ·         Cheap for local newspapers. ·         A lot of info can be put into the ad. ·         Adverts are permanent*.	·         Not eye-catching if they are in black and white. ·         Does not grab reader’s attention.	·         Local products ·         Cars ·         Banks
Magazines	·         Can use specialist magazines to reach only target audience. ·         Magazine ads are in colour and are more attractive.	·         They are only published once per month/week. ·         More expensive then newspapers.	·         Perfume ·         Golf equipment ·         Fashion clothes
Posters/billboards	·         Permanent* ·         Cheap ·         Potentially seen by anyone who passes by them.	·         Can easily be missed. ·         No detailed info can be included.	·         Events ·         Products bought by a large section of the population
Cinemas	·         Visual image shows product in a positive way. ·         Fairly cheap. ·         Effective if target audience goes to see particular films.	·         Only seen by people who go to watch films.	·         Toys for a children’s film.
Leaflets	·         Cheap ·         Given to a wide range of people. ·         Delivered to people’s houses. ·         May contain vouchers to encourage readers to keep the advert. ·         Permanent*	·         May not be read.	·         Local events. ·         Retail stores like Seven-Eleven
Internet	·         Can be seen by anybody around the world. ·         Can store lots of info. ·         Orders can instantly be made.	·         Internet searches may not highlight the website and it could be missed. ·         Internet access is limited in some countries. ·         Competition from other websites. ·         Security issues may discourage people from buying online.	·         Virtual goods. ·         Services such as banking or insurance. ·         Virtually anything that is not too small.
Others (delivery vehicles or sides of bags)	·         Cheap	·         May not be seen by everyone.	·         Shops put their names on plastic bags. ·         Coca cola use neon signs.

*Permanent: adverts can be kept for future references.
Design of adverts
Businesses usually use the AIDA model:

• Attention: Informs consumers that the product exists.
• Interest: Consumers need to become interested in the product.
• Desire: Makes consumers want the product.
• Action: Prompts consumers into buying the product.

The AIDA model is most effective on products that are not used regularly. It is less effective on products that are bought on a daily basis because people will know how good the quality really is.


Promotion
Different types of promotion
Promotion is usually used to support advertising and to encourage new or existing customers to buy the product. Its main function is to boost sales in the short-term, but not in the long term. It is used to attract new customers so that they can try out items with the hope that they will like it and continue to buy it after the promotion has ended. Here are some ways in which promotion is used:

• Price reductions: Involves sales or price reduction coupons. 
• Gifts: Gifts are placed in the packaging of the product to encourage consumers to buy it. (e.g. toys in McDonald's happy meal). 
• Competitions: A card may be put in the packaging allowing the consumer to enter contests such as the lottery. 
• Point-of sale displays and demonstrations: Can be put near the window and displayed attractively. It could also encourage people to buy it if they can see how it works (demonstrated by sales staff)
• After sales service: e.g. warranty services. It reassures the customers that if the product has a problem then they can go and fix it for free. This make the product more attractive than others without warranty.
• Free samples: Encourages people to try the product. It can be included in other products as well. E.g. washing machine comes with free washing powder.

The advantages of promotion

• Can boost sales during the year when sales are traditionally low (encourage off-season purchases)
• Encourages people to try a product.
• Encourages people to buy a product or the product in greater quantities.
• Encourages people to buy a product instead of competitors' products.

Which type of promotion should be used?
When deciding on what type of promotion should be used, these points should be considered:

• The stage of the product life cycle: e.g. use informative advertisement in the introduction stage of the life cycle.
• The nature of the product itself: e.g. consumer goods use coupons but producer goods use discounts on bulk buying.
• The advertising budget: obviously the type of promotion depends on how much you can spend.
• The cultural issues involved in international marketing: businesses need to consider whether their type of advertising might offend the local people. They should also take into account things such as how many people own TV, literacy level, etc…
• The nature of the target market: Different markets require different media for advertising.

Personal selling

• Used when the nature of the product varies. e.g. housing
  • Price varies.
  • Quality varies.
  • Customer requirements vary.
• When customers need advice on what type of product is the most appropriate for their situation.
• When selling expensive products such as cars.
• When negotiation about price or products is needed. This is common for businesses that sell to other businesses. (e.g. discounts on bulk buying)
• When a business has a stand at a trade fair.
  
  

Public relations

• Good for improving the brand/company's image.
• These activities raise public awareness of the company.
• Includes:
  • Sponsoring events such as football matches.
  • Giving products to charity.
  • Employees take part in an activity for a good cause.

Customer service
It is far more expensive to attract customers than to keep old customers, so one key objective for any business is to retain their old ones. In the international business environment, there are many competitors, so businesses need to raise the value of their products with customer service.
Good customer service is not only producing a good product but also means:

• Giving advice about the product: It is always good to give as much information about a product as possible so that the customers can be sure that they have purchased the product that meets their requirements. 
• Delivering goods for customers: It becomes convenient for the customer which encourages the customer to buy products from the business since they do not have to go anywhere. 
• Providing credit facilities: This means letting customers pay later or in monthly installments. This make products look cheaper and more affordable encouraging customers to buy them. Credit facilities are usually offered when people buy expensive products. You usually get interest as a result, but you could charge no interest for promotional purposes. 
• Providing product information: This means giving information on how to use the product and offering help on customer service helplines.
• After-sales service: The aim is to show that you care about customers' satisfaction. Examples of after-sales service include:
  • Warranties.
  • Regular product checks.
  • Giving refunds for faulty products.
  • Exchanging unsatisfactory goods.