Imagine a novel that combined Jane Austen’s Victorian England and Stephen King’s horror. Imagine if, even after the death of Shakespeare, we could read plays that felt like he had written them. Imagine if, a machine did all of this. Now let us tell you that your imagination might not be a pipe dream after all.
Since the coinage of the term ‘artificial intelligence’ in 1955, civilization has progressed tremendously in its knowledge and application of the field.
From the 1st AI program, called the Logic Theorist, which could successfully prove 38 theorems to self-driving cars and Google’s AlphaGo defeating the human Go champion, humans have continued to build the intelligence of machines alongside their own.
But how far do we go? There have numerous debates over this issue. The creation of intelligent machines is in our hands, and even though we have experienced this power, how feasible it is to use it? Where do we stop? Where do we say no?
Simultaneously, the arts had been seen as one field where AI had little use. According to Techopedia’s definition of AI, some of the activities for which AI is designed for include:
- Speech recognition
- Learning
- Planning
- Problem-solving
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Nowhere does the list say creation. But, it seems, we are slowly moving towards that reality. Creative work could very well be carried out by machines sometime in the future since it’s already happening in the field of content marketing.
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Below are the top 3 ways in which AI and automation could change the face of the content marketing industry:
Heightened personalization
58% of consumers want a more personalized experience, and yet 40% of marketers struggle with personalization. If you have been harping about the barriers to data sharing as an excuse, then just refer to this graph once:
Everyone wants a more personalized experience, and everyone is willing to share data for it. The question is: can you do it effectively? With the help of AI, yes, you can.
AI can take huge amounts of data and interpret it. You are already familiar with the amount of data that a company generates daily. To assimilate it all, break it down, figure out patterns, and make decisions based on those findings is going to be so much easier with the help of AI.
There is also the fact that consumers these days are flooded with huge amounts of information. Their attention span has become less than a goldfish’s attention span: 8.25 seconds. In such a scenario, it is only natural that consumers will get picky about the content they consume.
AI can help to make sure that they consume yours. It can easily automate the timings, type of content, and communication channel so that the word personalization takes on an entirely new meaning and content is tailored to each individual’s needs. When you know that a particular brand has the answers to your problems or can provide the experience you are looking for, why will they not choose you?
One approach you can take is to make your marketing efforts omnichannel. If you can personalize all those of channels, you can increase consumer spending by up to 500%.
Facebook has already jumped on the personalization bandwagon and actively keeps an eye on the type of content you engage with, to display posts that match your previous behaviour. As AI spreads out, general websites and blogs will be able to do it as well.
Automation of content
This is the biggest fear floating around in the heads of content writers.
The truth is, we are still far from that reality, though, it is already trickling in in little ways. Take news reporting and headline production for example.
In 2015, the Associated Press published a short financial news report ‘Apple tops Street IQ forecasts.’ On the surface, it looked as if a human wrote it, but was actually ‘generated’ by a robot journalist.
The following sports snippet is also written by a robo journalist/ algorithm:
“Tuesday was a great day for W. Roberts, as the junior pitcher threw a perfect game to carry Virginia to a 2-0 victory over George Washington at Davenport Field.”
A sentence that looks innocent when you read it but is the product of natural language generation (NLG).
In the future, we’ll see many more stories like these, and they’ll become increasingly harder to differentiate from the non-automated ones.
So, is it all doom and gloom now? Not necessarily.
With the coming of AI, bland reporting of facts telling what, when, where, how, and why can be automated. Humans can then sit down to engage with complex issues requiring more thought, reasoning, and creativity.
AI Assistants
These futuristic tools are all set to up the marketing campaigns of every company a lot more focused and might we risk saying- successful. An excellent example of these assistants is IBM Watson’s Lucy.
Lucy is no ordinary marketing tool. It can single-handedly achieve what an entire marketing team can after a few months. It can absorb and analyze all of a company’s data, and based on that, answer any and every marketing question you might have. Questions like:
- Which is my most profitable customer segment?
- How are my competitors positioning themselves?
- What is the customer persona of my ideal audience?
As any marketer will know, these questions can make or break a campaign and subsequently, a company and its consumers.
Manually, the answers to the above questions might be a little bit off-the-mark. But with Lucy on your team, you can be sure to get accurate insights which you can then use to create highly personalized campaigns that appeal to your audiences.
Conclusion
Just like any other technological innovation, AI too will change the landscape of content marketing. Above, we have only sketched out a few possibilities based on the past and our present understanding. The actual reality, though, will only be clear once the AI wave completely sweeps in. Whichever way the tide turns, it is sure to be an exciting time for the content marketing industry. Are you ready for it?
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