Given the coverage of AI, both positive and negative, we thought it would be a good time to share recent learning experiences to assist progressive marketers in approaching the use of AI in a positive manner. The central message is “don’t ignore it, or be afraid, embrace it to your advantage!” Those of us that do embrace it will be at a significant advantage compared to those who don’t.
Saving Time
AI applications are now at the point where they can be used for a wide range of time-consuming marketing tasks. From creating imagery and animation right through to writing copy and blogs (not this one!). It can also undertake more challenging tasks like curating brand guidelines, plans and strategy. However, the one common denominator across all these elements is that they won’t work without the correct human inputs, right through the process.
The Process
At the outset, the correct instructions are critical, like the way we use search engines, or any piece of software – the garbage in garbage out principle. Quality instructions will always yield superior results. This “prompt engineering” is a rapidly developing critical skillset and there are now some job roles that focus purely on this. Generative AI works best when given well worded, detailed prompts or examples. Time spent developing and perfecting these skills will reap the greatest rewards.
The Output
Also, time taken to carefully consider the AI output and adapt it to your precise needs is crucial. Just because it’s produced by AI it doesn’t mean it’s right, relevant or indeed has standout. Marketing is often a very subjective exercise, and a marketer needs to make decisions and adapt things to work in a marketing context. Marketers must take ultimate responsibility as they know their market, their stakeholders and understand the nuances that may be missed by AI. Ideally, the creative process is enhanced because you have more time to refine and improve the outputs because AI has done the heavy lifting for you.
There is also a learning loop at play here – you now have time to improve the inputs to get better outputs and a better overall result.
Examples
Let’s take an example of a marketing campaign and see where AI could be used. The campaign is marketing for a personal loan. AI could help with the following tasks.
– Competitor analysis
– Proposition development
– Imagery or animation
– Headlines and copy
– Media plans
The Human Touch
This covers many of the key tasks and potentially AI can save you a lot of time. But remember that AI will only present a solution based on what’s been done before and is available publicly. Also, it will probably not know whether a campaign has been successful or not. That ultimate knowledge (or judgement) resides with the marketer so again you must assess whether the campaign stacks up.
AI can help with pretty much all aspects of marketing, saving time and presenting comprehensive outputs, but it is essentially derivative and a curation of what already exists. However, the power lies in the fact that you can use the time saved to refine and improve, then use your judgement and experience to pull it all together into a coherent piece. Hopefully by adding your own finesse to raise the bar in terms of quality.
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