AI is quickly becoming prevalent in many business processes. For professionals in the field of marketing and outreach, 76 per cent are using AI tools for content and copy generation, and 71 per cent have used AI as part of their creative thinking process. This rise on the side of creators has been met with positive reactions from consumers.
A report by Capgemini Research Institute shows that 73 per cent of consumers trust AI-generated content and are comfortable relying on AI to help with financial planning, medical advice, and relationship tips.
However, AI isn’t the solution for every aspect of marketing. Despite the advancements in chatbots, up to 46 per cent of consumers still prefer speaking to a human agent. Finding the right balance between personalisation and automation is a key factor in the level of success that businesses can have with these tools.
Here are five key marketing activities that businesses should be doing and the AI tools to get the most mileage.
Market research
Market research is the start. Knowing the trends in your industry, target market, and buyer insights set the parameters for your marketing efforts.
Traditionally, teams will go through secondary research and online data, a laborious process that can be made easier by the following tools:
Gong tracks all the interactions with your customers to identify sales opportunities and pain points and outlines common objections and questions to get your team better prepared.
TL;DV is an AI-powered meeting recorder that stores and analyses customer interviews in one place. The keyword function enables your team to find every mention of a specific word or topic without going through entire recordings.
At this stage, AI is a lifesaver, but it’s a tool for analysing primary data and doesn’t conduct the research for you. You still need to understand your customers well to formulate effective communication and know how to approach them to get real insights.
Target audience segmentation
After knowing your market, it is time to segment your audience based on their specific needs and goals, factoring in company size, location, industry, budget, and business objectives.
Also Read: Embracing AI’s promise: Navigating the future of marketing
Peak.ai processes your business data and identifies relevant audience segments that match your ideal customer profiles. Segments can be further sorted by industries where specific solutions are needed, or by their funnel stage (awareness, consideration, decision) to deliver targeted messages that increase your closing chances.
While AI excels at data analysis and predictions, it can’t replace the human touch. You need personalised communication from your team to create a strong first impression that builds genuine connections with potential customers.
Brand building and content marketing
After mapping your market landscape and customer profiles, you can begin creating your content strategy to raise awareness and turn prospects into clients!
For this part, using a series of tools, you can create an intuitive workflow:
- ChatGPT or Google Gemini to generate ideas and content pieces
- Grammarly to sharpen the grammar quality
- Notion to organise your content roadmap and team responsibilities
With our prompts, providing enough details and context, clear desired outcomes, incorporating synonyms, and using causative language will give us options for a cleaner starting point. We recommend looking through this guide for a clearer picture.
From here, it is important to take over. Always proofread the results of your prompts for grammar and fact-checking in case of AI hallucinations. Also, this is a good chance to make edits so it sounds the way it should – written by you and your brand.
Outbound marketing
Now you’re ready to approach your clients. With these tools, they’ll notice you faster, and be encouraged to take the next steps:
Instantly.ai is a cold email software that helps with B2B lead generation. Features like the automated email warmup that warms up your sending email address to avoid being flagged as spam, and their lead finding and management feature help find and organise potential customer information streamline the process.
Apollo.io is designed to be a one-stop solution for B2B outreach. Access to decision-maker databases, email outreach automation, and sales engagement management tools that provide insight across the entire process with analytics letting you know what works.
However, automation at scale doesn’t work with personalisation. Customers want genuine connections with industry experts who understand their specific needs.
A case study we did for one of our clients in the health tech space revealed that our initial approach with a call to action for a discovery call didn’t convert get the results we wanted, sometimes a direct call to action can work, but in this case prospective buyers were not ready to discuss with a business they didn’t know.
Then we shifted our approach to invite prospects for a quick interview to share their insights and challenges they faced with health product design and impact measurement with our client. This adjustment led to a higher hit rate, and through the conversations, the prospects became warm leads, all built from genuine connections that automation couldn’t achieve.
Performance analysis and optimisation
For the final step, reviews and analyses of your marketing activities to chart your progress need to be done regularly.
Customfit.ai offers A/B testing functionalities to compare different versions of your websites and landing pages, with tools to segment dynamic content blocks for different visitors, and in-depth analytics. Their no-code interface makes it easy for your marketing team to dive right in.
Marketing audit
We’ve gone through five marketing activities businesses should engage in, and the AI tools to do so more efficiently. With so many levers and dials at your fingertips, it can be daunting to know where to start.
A marketing audit can put everything in perspective and help check your blind spots. For some businesses, spending money on new channels might seem like a great idea, when in reality, tweaks to existing channels would get results faster and cheaper.
An effective marketing audit will give you a workable blueprint that combines personalisation and automation in an ideal configuration for your business.
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