The Pros and Cons of AI in Marketing

Wednesday, April 5th, 2023

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will have noticed the worldwide domination of AI/ChatGPT in all aspects of media from fake viral imagery to portions of television episodes written by AI technology ChatGPT, in the instance of South Park’s episode Deep Learning. 

The development of AI in recent years has been nothing short of groundbreaking, with the technology being capable of performing tasks and generating content at a quality comparable to, well, what a human could produce…

As a modern society, the general consensus is quite mixed as to how much power and responsibility we should be allowing AI to present in our day-to-day life, with many arguing that this technology is a modern phenomenon whereas many fear that it could potentially put many creative jobs at risk.

But when it comes to the world of business and particularly digital marketing, the introduction of AI brings numerous benefits that when used correctly, can be a potent tool for your paid advertising…but only to a certain degree. 

In this week’s blog, we’ll uncover the pros and cons of bringing AI into your marketing strategy, so you can maximise its potential as well as keep yourself aware of the risks that come with this ‘controversial’ technology.

Pros:

1. Efficiency

With many arguing that AI is putting an employee’s job at risk, it’s actually quite the opposite…if you’re a marketing professional who often finds themselves overrun with tedious tasks, you may have found your perfect virtual assistant, freeing up more time to focus on more important work. 

Unlike a human, AI doesn’t need to take a coffee break so can easily automate repetitive tasks such as generating ideas for email campaigns, social media captions and customer service replies. This not only benefits employees as a whole but can also improve your business’ reputation via quick and accurate responses. 

This also applies to the likes of copywriters and creative writing-based job roles. The technology is not here to do the job for you (or replace you!) but is actually what some would call a ‘life hack’, as it is able to generate ideas and quick information on a topic, therefore, being a cure for that pesky writing block we all know too well. 

 

2. Personalisation & Retargeting

If you know anything about digital marketing, it’s that marketers love a bit of personalisation and retargeting! So when you bring AI into the mix, you’re in for a customer-targeting goldmine. This is due to AI being able to create a hyper-personalised experience by analysing customer behaviours, interests, and preferences. 

This means that marketers don’t need to rely on generic messaging across their channels, and instead can create content and relevant messages based on exactly what that extremely specific audience is looking for. Coming back to the efficiency factor, you’ll be able to create messaging faster than ever before. 

 

3. Ahead of the trends

You don’t need to be a marketer to be aware of the impact that trends have on all social media channels…and how quickly a trend can be overdone before you even get a chance to make the most of it. This is where AI comes in handy. 

AI has the capability to predict future trends and customer behaviours based on the data you input, therefore this will allow your business to make more insightful decisions when it comes to planning your future strategies and staying ahead of the curve and in turn, the competition.

 

Cons:

1. Humans (Lack of empathy and bias) 

To knock the obvious answer out of the park, AI lacks any sense of human empathy and generally doesn’t have a ‘welcoming’ tone to its automated responses – which isn’t ideal especially when it comes to phone call conversations, or even when constructing a particular tone of voice in your messaging.

Although AI is capable of delivering insightful and informative content on pretty much any topic, without that human touch, you run the risk of your brand looking ‘robotic’ and unoriginal in some aspects of your content. You will always need that human presence to ensure any messaging from your brand (whether that be ad copy, blog posts or emails) always lives up to your brand’s overall TOV and general unique feel that makes your brand stand out and remain memorable. 

So don’t worry copywriters you’re safe, for now…

 

2. Inaccuracy

In instances such as ChatGPT, there have been many reports of unreliable answers ‘riddled with inaccuracy and plagiarism’, therefore it’s not recommended to see these technologies as your holy grail. Extra research should always be done to ensure what you’re publishing is containing 100% facts, backed up with your own findings to avoid any risk of plagiarism.

 

3. Limited Creativity

As AI is built on data that already exists, and a general pre-programmed algorithm so it cannot offer any level of creativity to a topic beyond any available information, it isn’t ideal if you’re looking to create content ‘outside the box’ or essentially anything original. 

This point leads back to the argument many bring up in relation to AI ‘taking creative jobs’ because, at this point in time, the majority of AI apps and general technologies can only do so much and are not yet capable of comprehending complex ideas. 

For example, AI can create a well-structured image based on data and a generic prompt, but it cannot produce anything near comparable to the typography and in-depth image manipulation you see from a qualified graphic designer. These materials require lots of manual verification and revisions before being published in any state. 

But who knows what the future holds, Adobe has already announced its AI-generated photoshop is in the works so watch this space…

 

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