The Smartest Ways to Use AI in Content Marketing
Marketers, writers, and artists initially greeted the arrival of artificial intelligence (AI) content writing tools like ChatGPT with a lot of (well-deserved) criticism. Fortunately, years after its release, we’ve realized that OpenAI isn’t opening the door for bots to take our jobs.
If anything, the popularity of these tools shows that there’s a huge need for a return to human-created marketing content. How many soulless blogs have you read that are just dripping with obvious AI clichés?
Still, it doesn’t pay to be a tech pariah. After all, using AI can speed up a lot of the content marketing process, from data segmentation to creating blog outlines.
So how can you harness the full potential of AI tools in your content marketing strategy — without losing the human touch that makes your brand unique? In this guide, we’ll explore responsible ways to use AI in content marketing to cut down on the hassle of content generation, advance your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, and improve your user engagement.
What’s the Deal With AI in Content Marketing?
Content creators spend hours agonizing over keyword research, video edits, and much more. But it’s all worth it for the increases in user engagement and, of course, sales.
More and more folks are using AI-powered tools to create high-quality content, cutting down the time required for content marketing tasks. In fact, two-thirds of marketers use generative AI (GenAI) to bridge resource gaps.
AI tools like ChatGPT, Jasper, and Copy.ai make content marketing less time-consuming. Think of AI not as a replacement for human content writers but as a helpful sidekick when producing blog posts, social media content, email marketing campaigns, and video scripts. Since AI is a sidekick and not the superhero (that’s you!), it still needs plenty of supervision and oversight to ensure it doesn’t go off the rails.
Still, there’s a lot to love about AI as a content marketing tool, including:
- Smarter automation: One of the biggest benefits of using AI in content marketing is streamlining time-consuming tasks. From scheduling social media posts to optimizing email marketing campaigns and A/B testing copy, AI writing tools can handle repetitive tasks with remarkable efficiency. And with more time on their hands, content creators can focus on being creative, not fussing over tedious tasks.
- Better personalization: Your audience expects personalized experiences. Fortunately, AI tools make it a cinch to analyze data sets and deliver relevant content tailored to your followers’ needs. By leveraging machine learning algorithms, you can create personalized landing pages, subject lines, and product recommendations that align with each user’s unique search intent.
- Data-driven insights: Everybody wants to be more data-driven — until they see a mound of Excel data that needs organization and analysis. Luckily for you, machine learning algorithms can parse through analytics at lightning speed to uncover trends and even predict customer behavior. Use these insights to refine your content strategy in real time, optimizing everything from audience segmentation to behavioral predictions.
- Faster content creation: We don’t advocate letting AI content tools write all of your copy, but they can certainly speed up the content writing process. AI-assisted tools are great for brainstorming blog topics, eye-catching titles, and landing page copywriting text designed to get customers to take action. Tools like ChatGPT give content writers the boost they need to get over writer’s block and let their human creativity flourish.
Is It Dangerous to Use AI in Content Marketing?
The short answer is no, AI in content marketing isn’t inherently dangerous.
The thing is, AI is a tool. Like any digital marketing software in your tech stack, the results depend on how you use it.
Some black hat marketers see nothing wrong with prompting ChatGPT to write an inevitably low-quality, weird-sounding blog to game search engines. Not only does this fill search engines with bad copy, but it also hurts the user experience.
While search engines can’t 100% prove that you published AI copy with little regard for the user experience, they’ll still penalize you for writing low-quality content because it fails to engage with users. In this way, leaning too much on AI in content marketing will hurt your standing in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
With that said, using AI in content creation does come with some risks, including:
- Lack of originality: Since algorithms learn from existing data sets, there’s also a risk of unintentionally creating AI-generated content that mirrors the text or format of other published pieces, which can harm your rankings on search engines due to duplicate content concerns. This is just another reason why you can’t rely too much on AI tools to create content for you.
- Not maintaining a consistent brand voice: Tools like Jasper swear they can learn your brand voice and write like one of your employees, but to be honest, these features aren’t very good. Tone consistency is a big deal in content marketing because it tells customers who you are. Even the most advanced AI tools struggle to capture all the quirks of your brand’s unique personality. Sure, AI is great for straightforward tasks like generating email subject lines, but not so much for conveying more nuanced emotions.
- Impersonal copy: Overreliance on automation and AI can strip your content of the much-needed human touches that make it fun to engage with. Your audience has unique perspectives and emotions that only other humans can match.
Ultimately, these issues don’t make AI marketing tools “dangerous.” AI itself isn’t harmful, but how you use it can be. Ultimately, marketing teams need to strike a balance between saving time with AI tools while avoiding overreliance on them.
How to Use AI in Content Marketing Responsibly
So how do you welcome robots into the content creation process without them running amok? Here are three smart ways to use AI in content marketing without losing the soul of your brand.
1. Come Up With Better Content Ideas
Content ideation is one of the most popular ways to use AI in content marketing. In fact, 62% of marketers use GenAI to come up with ideas.
AI tools like ChatGPT are great for:
- Content generation ideas
- Creating blog or script templates
- Optimizing content for search engines
The goal of AI isn’t to replace human writers but to improve the quality (and quantity!) of their work. When in doubt, use AI for time-consuming and less creative tasks like data analysis, keyword research, and SEO strategy.
2. Parse Through Analytics at Lightning Speed
Your team probably hates sifting through analytics and Excel data sets, but AI loves it. AI tools can identify the best content types for your target audience, uncover gaps in your content marketing strategy, and provide data-driven insights for better SEO performance.
One caveat: Don’t give AI sensitive data. It trains its algorithm based on information you feed it, so you need to be OK with everything the AI accesses. If you’re working with something classified, it’s best to create content the old-fashioned way.
3. Improve the Customer Experience
AI-powered tools and predictive analytics can significantly improve user engagement. Chatbots and other similar technology are awesome at giving customers immediate answers to simple questions, freeing up your customer service team.
For content creation, these tools excel at fine-tuning existing content to make it even more irresistible to your target audience. Just feed the AI bot your target customer personas and watch it refine the copy before your eyes.
If you aren’t a fan of using robots for this, go with an experienced content marketing agency like Growth Machine. Our SEO experts handle strategy, SEO performance, and content creation to give you the benefits of content marketing without the AI anxiety.
Create AI Use Guidelines
Provide your team with clear guardrails for how to use AI in content marketing. In your guidelines, tell your team when and how they should and shouldn’t use AI. Involve everyone in this process to ensure these guidelines are realistic and match employee workflows.
You may also need to adjust your content marketing process to account for AI tools. For example, you should check for plagiarism before posting any content. This is always a content marketing best practice, but it’s even more important in the age of AI. Since algorithms train on existing data sets, there’s a chance they might generate content that’s too similar to what’s already published.
Tools like Grammarly Pro come with automatic plagiarism checkers to ensure every piece of content is original. Of course, don’t rely entirely on these tools. They aren’t 100% accurate, but they can still give you a good idea of whether your content is original or not.
Score Content Production That’s Worry-Free
AI-powered tools are a new addition to the world of content marketing, and businesses are right to be wary. While AI comes with a few concerns, the benefits of using AI responsibly can outweigh those worries. As long as you balance the use of AI with a human touch, you can create authentic, relatable content in less time.
While AI offers a lot of possibilities, not all businesses are ready to go all-in on AI in content marketing. So if you’re excited about harnessing the power of content marketing but lack the time and expertise to do it all internally, tap experts for a little help.
At Growth Machine, we specialize in creating data-driven, high-quality content that balances the best of human creativity with the efficiency of AI-driven processes. Our team can help you build a content strategy that not only ranks but also connects with your target audience. Contact us today to keep the humanity in your content marketing.
