Is AI in Marketing Merely Over-promoted?

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Is AI in Marketing Merely Over-promoted?
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• Does it seem like you hear about artificial
  intelligence (AI) everywhere you turn these days?
  Thats no surprise when you consider that hype
  and popularity go hand in hand. Business owners
  claim that AI will change the way that every
  employee works while consumers state it will
  change their lives. At the same time, many people
  feel worried that the automation available with
  AI will become too powerful too fast and take
  away many jobs.

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• Are these legitimate claims and concerns or
  merely hype? That can be a difficult question to
  answer but looking at AI as it relates to
  marketing is a good place to start. Answering the
  three questions below can help you decide if AI
  is just a fad or something thats here to stay.

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What Are Some Real-Life Cases of AI in Marketing?

• Hearing about the potential of AI can be
  exciting but reading about real examples of
  success is far more inspiring. Below are some
  examples of what implementing AI has done for
  some actual companies

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• Using the Salesforce Commerce Cloud and AI, the
  Stonewall Kitchen Company revamped its website
  completely. Because of these tools, the website
  understands and acts upon the unique behavior of
  each customer. As an example, customers who
  abandon their shopping cart with items still in
  it will receive emails encouraging them to
  complete the sale or directing them to more
  appropriate products.

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• A company called StoryStream uses AI to create
  user-generated content thats completely at
  scale. Another food business, Co-op, used AI to
  power a marketing campaign entitled nowcookit.
• Other companies have enabled AI to automatically
  write subject lines for emails, improve online
  content, and
• improve search performance and content marketing.

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Is It Possible for Marketers to Implement
AI-Powered Technology?

• AI has only been around for a few years and is
  truly still in the infancy stage. Naturally, a
  lot of hype still surrounds it. For it to live up
  to the hype, marketers must implement the
  technology it offers across various industries
  and at scale. That presents a few major
  challenges.

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• The first challenge to consider is that the
  developers of AI created it to solve cases
  involving narrow use like the ones highlighted
  above. To fully integrate AI requires businesses
  to potentially add more than a dozen new
  marketing tools. This can make AI integration too
  complex for companies that already struggle to
  manage the existing marketing stack.

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• Secondly, start-up business owners currently
  build some of the most innovative marketing
  technologies that utilize AI. While these
  companies often have significant start-up
  funding, many also have few case studies to
  demonstrate success and are therefore largely
  unproven. Additionally, these start-up businesses
  sometimes struggle to explain how using AI makes
  their services and products more effective and
  efficient.

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• Lastly, the larger marketing platforms often end
  up buying the small start-ups and further
  limiting the availability of genuine AI talent.
  This means that brands left behind must try to
  replace their most valuable assets and tools.
• Despite these challenges, marketing powered by
  AI technology still has the ability to completely
  transform the industry. Brands must take a highly
  strategic approach to research, selection, and
  integration of the most effective solutions.

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How Can AI Affect Return on Investment?

• After fully implementing AI and redesigning its
  website, the Stonewall Kitchen Company reported
  an increase in revenue of 10 percent. Co-op
  posted even more impressive results, including an
  11 percent increase in conversion, an eight-fold
  content curation improvement, and a five-fold
  increase in the time spent implementing
  StoryStream from its website.

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• Other companies report cutting their lead times
  in half and seeing an improvement in email open
  rates of 35 percent.
• Its clear to see that many brands have received
  value from implementing AI. One reason for this
  is that marketers have access to increasing
  amounts of data while consumers continue to
  demand greater personalization across multiple
  channels. That makes AI one of the only effective
  ways to scale marketing driven by data in todays
  complex marketplace.

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• Organizations that cant identify specific uses
  for AI and then follow that up by attracting the
  best talent cant expect positive results. A new
  era demands a proactive and innovative leader who
  isnt afraid to seek new solutions via AI to
  continuously learn. This approach is the only way
  to meet ROI goals as related to AI.

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Wrapping It All Up

• Theres no doubt that AI is complicated.
  However, it has already proven it can offer
  excellent marketing applications if leaders are
  willing to meet specific challenges. The best way
  to ensure that you remain ahead in this movement
  is to stay updated on AI news and continue to
  look for AI case studies that you can apply to
  your own business.