Marketers: Bot In To AI

Embrace the opportunities that artificial intelligence creates for content creation

ERICA LACENTRA, CONTRIBUTOR, NATIONAL MORTGAGE PROFESSIONAL MAGAZINE

Artificial intelligence, or AI, has been gaining traction in the mortgage industry for a variety of uses. For example, numerous mortgage lenders have started looking at ways that AI can be utilized for routine, repetitive data-driven tasks to simplify the origination process and cut down on human error. Also, many companies have begun to utilize AI chatbots to be able to answer basic questions and assist with customer service interactions.

However, the utilization of artificial intelligence for marketing efforts, especially in the mortgage industry, is still rather uncharted territory. As marketers in this space as well as other industries, begin to identify more uses for AI, that is likely to change and change rapidly. So where are marketing professionals seeing AI have the best applications in their marketing strategies and ongoing tasks, and where does a human touch still reign supreme?

THE FUTURE OF CONTENT CREATION?

As technology and artificial intelligence become more widely accepted in organizations, there is always the concern that tech may ultimately replace the individuals currently tasked with these job functions. With the idea of utilizing AI for content creation becoming more prevalent, content marketers may resist using AI in these areas for fear that their roles will become obsolete. However, marketers should cast these fears aside and instead embrace the opportunities that AI creates for content creation.

Artificial intelligence has the potential to shape the future of content creation. It can not only improve the quality of content and make marketers more efficient but with the use of AI tools, marketers will simply be able to do more on the content front. For example, many notable organizations, such as the New York Times and Reuters have started using Natural Language Generation (NLG) tools, like Acrolinx, Article Forge, and QuillBot AI, which allows AI to “learn” from provided data.

As these AI tools process and learn data sets and content that is provided, these tools can ultimately create new content that sounds like a human wrote it rather than a machine spitting back gibberish. Think, better program and product descriptions, ad copy suggestions, crafted data-reports that take no time at all and so much more. Marketers simply need to provide the appropriate parameters and general guidelines for what they are looking for, and AI can assist with the rest.

Another example of where AI tools could assist with marketing is by creating more personalized content for platforms such as social media and marketing emails. Think of the enormous amount of time that could be saved on efforts like daily social media post creation. Tools powered by artificial intelligence can analyze customer demographics, behaviors, and sentiments about your brand from real customers and ultimately craft more targeted content and messaging that appeals to your core audience. No more poring over analytics to craft the perfect campaign. Plus, with machine learning, AI can continue to track what campaigns have been the most successful and adjust over time to ensure your content is driving sales.

Finally, in the same vein as analyzing customer behaviors for application for social media marketing and email marketing, AI can assist with developing content to help organizations meet their SEO (search engine optimization) goals. AI tools for keyword research can help provide a better understanding of what your audience is searching for that ultimately brings them to your company’s website or your competitor’s.

Tools such as SEMrush can help marketers perform keyword research with ease and determine what keywords customers are searching for more often, where your organization ranks in the grand scheme of things against your competitors and more. Then marketers can take these keywords and utilize other AI tools to develop topics for articles that will perform better with your target audience and boost your visibility online. Ultimately, when used properly, AI tools will allow marketers to reach their core customers with ease.

CAN’T DO IT ALL, YET

While using artificial intelligence for content creation sounds like a nobrainer, the bad news, or good news if you are a marketer currently shaking in your boots thinking you are about to be replaced by tech, is AI generated content is still rather flawed and more often than not, requires human intervention during the content creation process. While the content AI produces is impressive, it often can miss the mark of what an organization may be driving at with its content.

Full articles or blog posts may be nonsensical in places or go beyond the scope of what a company wants a piece to focus on. This is because AI can’t currently use reasoning like a human can, and it can’t create any original insights. It simply creates based on what it’s given, and in a lot of cases, content may be incorrect or piecemealed in a way that doesn’t make sense.

That being said, utilizing AI for content creation has tremendous value and its use will likely grow as advancements are made in technology. However, it is important for marketers to remember that, as of right now, AI is best used as a means of assisting with content creation rather than solely relied on to generate content. n

Erica LaCentra is chief marketing officer for RCN Capital.