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The Best AI Solutions for Marketers
Aug 16, 2024 • 7 Minute Read • Stephanie Nardone, Content Marketing Director
It's no secret that artificial intelligence (AI) has influenced marketers' roles. Today, AI tools and technologies offer practical, ready-for-use solutions revolutionizing the field. Generative AI (GenAI) is essential in automation for both near- and long-term strategic plans, enabling even the smallest teams to deliver higher output, make better decisions, and drive impressive productivity results.
Recent research from the 451 Research Discover Report underscores the significance of AI in automation. The report shows that 53% consider GenAI highly valuable for business processes and workforce automation.
However, countless AI tools are out there, and new ones emerge daily. You might find yourself chasing after every new AI tool, or you may feel hesitant and overwhelmed by the vast options. We get it. With endless options, having a clear digital roadmap for your business is crucial. With a strategic plan, you can avoid jumping from tool to tool without achieving lasting benefits.
In this article, we explore practical avenues for leveraging AI and map tools we've used, recommended, built, or researched. Regardless of your position on adopting AI, insights and a clear vision will help you decide which tools and initiatives to prioritize for generative content.
We'll explore AI-powered tools for:
- Content Ideation
- Content Curation
- Search Engine Optimization Strategy
- Design and Presentations
4 AI-Driven Tools by Marketing Initiative
1. Content Ideation
What do you do when you're a marketer and discover an ocean of AI tools promising to make your job easier? You test them out. From experience, there's no looking back once you've started using GenAI tools.
Here are a few ways you could prompt GenAI:
- Topic and Brainstorming: "What are this year's latest trends [industry or niche]? I need topic ideas for my content calendar / [marketing channel]."
- Content Planning:
- "Pretend you're a content strategist and build a three-week calendar leading up to the trade show event we're attending, including content for during the event." List tradeshow details, including whether you're exhibiting, who's attending, event activations, etc.
- "Provide a campaign brief for [topic] targeting [audience]." This prompt should provide placeholders for campaign objective, primary and secondary audience details, key messaging, campaign channels, KPIs, budget, timeline, and stakeholders.
- Improvement: "Pretend you're a content marketer and critique my sales sheet." Specifically, incorporate checkpoints around whether your copy creates trust, builds authority, and increases the likelihood of conversion.
Of course, the thing to understand is that these are suggestions, and there's no human on the other end. AI is like a teammate with fewer stakes in the game; you shouldn't rely on it to curate word-for-word content. The more details or feedback you give it, the better off your result will be. But remember, use AI to generate ideas, dig you out of writer's block, and brainstorm. When it comes to actually creating content, your audience wants to hear from you, not a robot.
Gen AI & editing tools to consider:
- Chat GPT, powered by Open AI, requires little introduction. But double-check that you're using it efficiently and not using it to replace your content writing entirely.
- Perplexity, another AI-powered answer engine similar to ChatGPT, provides real-time answers for research and conversational search engines. It answers queries using natural language predictive text.
- Grammarly differs from the others, but it's got your back regarding swift and efficient editing. This tool has an AI generator and is convenient for small marketing teams that need that "second set of eyes." Its browser extension is key for efficiency across desktop apps and browsers. One feature for premium users is that it can check that your writing aligns with your brand voice or check for plagiarism, comparing your work to billions of web papers and academic papers.
2. Content Curation with LLMs
While many marketers are touting GenAI as a secret weapon for faster content ideation and planning, the true ace in the hole is large language models (LLMs). LLMs can integrate into planning tools or larger digital experience platforms (DXP) and content systems. Language models are advanced and provide less robotic information and content.
The reason? It's trained on your data. With custom LLMs, you can curate the data sources that train the model for accuracy and compliance. Content is based on what you point the LLM to, giving you control over purging irrelevant material and updating it as needed.
Custom LLMs help to:
- Accelerate workflows, saving time and money
- Leverage secure and compliant data
- Ensure messaging remains relevant and on-brand
- Customizes outputs tailored to your industry needs and language preferences
Optimizely's content marketing platform (CMP) has a built-in product called Opal, a co-pilot integration that enhances chat features for AI-powered content capabilities. It's intuitive and speeds up workflows, reducing the time to create a brief by half. Opal assists in efficient content curation, and you can deploy a custom LLM to bypass compliance issues, ensuring a smooth and efficient content creation process.
Here are two tools to bring your own AI (BYOAI) into Optimizely's CMP:
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Writer: A full-stack generative AI platform for enterprises that connects its models to your internal data sources. Writer's family of in-house LLMs, called Palmyra, boosts creativity and productivity at an enterprise level.
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Jasper AI: Known for its versatility, Jasper offers robust AI capabilities for creating diverse content types, from blog posts to social media updates, tailored to meet your brand guidelines. Jasper integrates seamlessly with your tech stack and includes a browser extension.
3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Similar to content curation, GPT tools are a great starting point for SEO. You can expedite SEO work by entering prompts, like writing page titles and meta descriptions, link building, image and video SEO, content personalization, competitor analysis, and more.
Ways AI tools for SEO can save time and improve efficiency:
- Keyword Research: Discover relevant keywords to enhance your content and improve your search rankings.
- Title Tag Generation: Create compelling and SEO-friendly title tags that adhere to the latest best practices.
- Meta Descriptions: Generate concise meta descriptions under 160 characters to improve click-through rates.
- Image and Video SEO: Optimize your multimedia content to ensure better visibility and higher rankings in search results.
- Content Personalization: Tailor your content to meet your target audience's needs and preferences.
- Link Building: Identify high-authority websites for potential backlinks to boost your site's credibility.
- Competitor Analysis: Analyze your competitors' SEO strategies to stay ahead.
- Content Optimization: Critique and refine your content to maximize its SEO potential.
Example prompts for using GPT tools for SEO:
- Page Titles: "Write a page title using 2024 SEO best practices for the page [insert your website]."
- Backlink Opportunities: "What are five websites with high domain authority that can get backlinks for [insert your website]?"
- Meta Descriptions: "[Paste Article] - write a meta description under 160 characters."
As stated in previous sections, while using AI to help expedite SEO work, it's still an AI program, and human review is necessary. We find that it's not always accurate and can sometimes go outside the character limitations for meta descriptions. It's incredibly crucial to conduct a human review on this.
AI tools to consider for SEO:
- OpenAI's GPT-4 and ChatGPT Enterprise provide security and privacy for your teams. According to their website, 92% of the Fortune 500 already use OpenAI in their business.
- OpenAI's ChatGPT EDU is a version of ChatGPT built for universities to responsibly deploy AI to students, faculty, researchers, and campus operations. Powered by GPT-4o, ChatGPT Edu can reason across text and vision and use advanced tools such as data analysis. This new offering includes enterprise-level security and affordable controls for educational institutions.
- Google's RankBrain uses machine learning algorithms to understand user search queries and provide more relevant search results. By optimizing your website for RankBrain, you can improve your chances of ranking higher in Google's search results.
- SEMRush's Content Analyzer can analyze your existing content, identify areas for improvement, and suggest strategies to enhance your website's visibility and performance.
4. Generative AI for the Design Function
When supporting the designer, a few tools can help up-level your design, reduce human errors, or manage assets and files. Here's a quick overview of some critical AI-powered design tools:
- Co-Pilot for Storyboards: Generates story ideas and helps visualize concepts quickly.
- Beautiful AI for Presentations: Offers intuitive design capabilities, reducing the need for manual adjustments and enhancing visual appeal.
- DALL-E for Image Generation: Creates high-quality, unique images based on textual descriptions, perfect for generating custom visuals.
What to Avoid
1. Over-Reliance on Automation: While automating tedious tasks is beneficial, don't sacrifice creativity and authenticity for speed. You'll risk alienating customers and prospects.
2. Neglecting Data Quality: If you're using LLMs, consider their pros and cons. They can prevent employees from using unauthorized tools, are intuitive, and provide content from a trusted source (your business). However, while being trained on your data ensures trust and consistency, you must monitor and update it regularly.
Implementing AI Tools for Your Business
As you explore new AI tech and tools, consider how they can address your specific needs in a way that can transform your marketing and drive your business forward.
Before integrating a new AI tool, identify areas for improvement and document a roadmap that can outline your goals, whether in content generation, optimizing organic search, or automating workflows. Our team can assist in mapping out your objectives and evaluating how AI can address your specific challenges. We'll work with you to tackle your team's unique hurdles and help you stay ahead as AI technology progresses.
Ready to take the next step? Contact us to learn more.