With so many potential digital touch points and paths to brand awareness and eventual conversion available, finding ways to better connect with consumers is a challenge that all businesses face in 2023. Companies across industries and around the world are experimenting with artificial intelligence technologies to enhance their sales, operations and customer service, so it follows that marketers are also embracing AI to engage their target audiences.
Despite the enthusiasm building around the seemingly limitless use cases for AI, however, determining the best ways to employ these tools still presents a dilemma for even the most tech-savvy of marketing teams. Below, 15 members of Forbes Agency Council share creative ways for marketers to leverage AI technology to connect with consumers and turn them into prospective customers.
Members pictured from left to right.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.1. Finding Niche Audiences To Survey
We leverage AI for consumer research and intelligence. Some of the tools we use help us find niche audiences for surveying. Imagine you want to survey 300 mothers from underrepresented communities between the ages of 28 and 35 living in the Northwest—well, we can do that by using AI to mine the Web and offer them an incentive for taking our survey. The insights from the survey then fuel marketing and creative strategies. - Rich Cannava, Overskies
2. Engaging With Customers In Real Time
Marketers can use AI-powered chatbots to engage with consumers in real time. Chatbots can be used on a company’s website or social media platforms to respond immediately to customers and offer personalized recommendations based on their past interactions with the brand. This can help create a more seamless and enjoyable experience for the customer, which can lead to increased engagement and loyalty. - Stephanie Chavez, Zen Media
3. Analyzing Prospects’ Social Behavior
We use an AI-based IBM Watson Natural Language Processing Library to analyze the social behavior of our prospects. This helps us take our messaging and content beyond their job role by looking at how they behave online, what drives them, who influences them and what content they consume in what format and where. This helps us connect on an emotional and personal level, not just on the surface. - Jason Sibley, The Creation Agency Limited
4. Matching Brand Visions With Content Creators
Today, finding the right creator is crucial to creating content that resonates with consumers. Marketers can use AI to match brand visions with the perfect creators—all while being able to understand audience interest clusters, better contextualize content and predict its impact on viewers. With AI, brands can drive key performance indicators forward seamlessly and create moments that audiences will remember. - Ricky Ray Butler, BEN
Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?
5. Answering Complicated Client Questions
The best way to use AI in marketing currently is through chatbots. Many new chatbots can answer complicated questions and offer excellent multiple choice questions if they do not directly understand what users are asking. This assists clients by providing a better answer and experience, and the business benefits by not needing to actively monitor chat systems. - David Kley, Web Design and Company
6. Finding (And Filling) Content Gaps In Information
Having a successful first contact with customers means providing them with the information that they are looking for. Artificial intelligence can be creatively used to find content gaps, which are gaps in the available information that consumers are looking for. AI can help marketers identify those gaps and then create content to fill those gaps. - A. Lee Judge, Content Monsta
7. Virtually Producing Videos
We built virtual video production studios and used AI to create locations we could not get to during the pandemic. Now, we don’t have to take retail and healthcare locations offline to shoot. Like the entertainment and gaming industries, we use AI to create brand experiences consumers crave. In the right creative, strategic and technical hands, AI can create authentic brands. - Stephen Rosa, (add)ventures
8. Personalizing Emails
Email personalization may not sound creative, but considering the importance of the email channel as a way to connect with customers, we view AI as an email marketing game changer. By combining machine learning with business firmographic and contact data, marketers can streamline time-consuming processes and automate personalization across content, images, subject lines, calls to action and more. - Paula Chiocchi, Outward Media, Inc.
9. Delivering Seamless Service
As marketers, we understandably often focus on acquisition, but customers appreciate seamless service. Smart agencies look beyond sales for ways to leverage artificial intelligence to improve operations and customer service. Applying AI to your fulfillment operations can help leaders make real-time decisions that deliver a more satisfying customer experience. - Mary Ann O’Brien, OBI Creative
10. Creating Full Stories And Numerous Storylines
AI is giving brands a unique opportunity to tell their customers compelling stories. Brands can now create full stories out of a simple prompt or idea and generate, on the fly, numerous storylines that are relevant to their business. By using AI-based text generators and text-to-image generators, brands can create stunning content that will help them better engage with their audience. - Fernando Beltran, Identika LLC
11. Monitoring Online Conversations
Artificial intelligence is being used to help brands monitor online conversations in real time and respond to them with thorough analysis. But they can go one step further and use AI to understand the sentiments behind conversations too. This will help marketers understand what their audience responds positively or negatively to and optimize accordingly to build strong connections. - Vanhishikha Bhargava, Contensify
12. Creating Unique Images With Generative AI
Creative marketers can use generative AI to create unique content, specifically images, for social media platforms to drive user engagement. Using image-to-image conversion, for example, generative AI can quickly generate a nighttime photo from a daytime photo, or create an image from descriptive text. Finding creative ways to engage consumers with AI-generated photos can be a game changer. - Don Dodds, M16 Marketing
13. Generating Headlines For Ads And Copy
A number of AI writing tools let you assess and generate headlines for advertising and copy. I don’t trust these tools to write a lot of text with deep meaning and a unique perspective, but they can be useful in generating a number of alternatives for testing. - Jim Caruso, M1PR, Inc. d/b/a MediaFirst PR - Atlanta
14. Letting AI Truly Interact With Consumers
The most creative way to use AI to connect with consumers might be to actually let your AI connect with consumers—not just via chatbots but also in other engaging ways that people will tell their friends about. Let your AI be sarcastic and funny. Have interactive game content that is relevant to your customer experience. The unique consumer information gathered from such interactions could be incredibly valuable. - Marc Hardgrove, The HOTH
15. Targeting Audiences With Trending Topics
AI can be used to connect with the audience’s habits and most “liked” content on social media to target them with specific topics and trends that are holding their attention or enticing them to swipe to learn more. However, even if you are selling directly on social media, make sure you also have the ability to sell on third parties such as Amazon, because consumers prefer a more streamlined process. - Jessica Hawthorne-Castro, Hawthorne LLC
