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How to use AI marketing technology

by Canto  |  July 8, 2024

9 min. read
Robotic hand of AI grasping an AI search tool icon to get placed with other AI tools in a stack over a blue background.

Facing pressure to “do more with less,” marketers around the world are looking for ways to maximize impact and efficiency. AI-driven marketing offers an attractive solution, with its promise to transform marketing workflows and improve productivity. However, knowing where to start with AI can be overwhelming.

If you’re struggling with these issues, you’re not alone. In this guide, you’ll learn the best ways to integrate AI tools into your marketing efforts effectively, ensuring you make the most of AI’s potential.

What is AI marketing?

AI marketing means using artificial intelligence technology to improve marketing efforts and outcomes. Marketers can use AI to speed up content creation, management, and delivery.

AI can also involve using data on customer behavior to automate decisions, making marketing efforts more efficient.

There are several methods to use AI for marketing:

  • Content creation and personalization: AI generates content and tailors messages to audience preferences.
  • Ad placement and customer segmentation: AI optimizes ad placement and groups customers for more effective targeting.
  • Content management: AI streamlines content management workflows with better ways to search, index, and organize marketing materials.

Overall, AI business marketing allows teams to focus on strategic tasks, deliver more personalized campaigns, and manage content smarter.

What are the benefits of using AI for marketing?

From lowering costs to making marketing operations more scalable, there are three key benefits to using AI for marketing:

1. Scalability

AI automates and streamlines processes so marketers can handle larger campaigns more efficiently. AI also enables teams to expand their capabilities without increasing headcount — augmenting existing skillsets.

With AI-powered search tools, teams can instantly locate content, making sure everyone has access to the latest resources. When it’s time to scale campaigns, these tools streamline marketing asset management, making it easier to use the right materials efficiently.

2. Cost-effectiveness

Once they’re fully integrated, many AI tools can generate unlimited outputs and automate some mundane marketing tasks.

For example, AI can automate the creation of content variations, manage routine customer inquiries, or optimize ad placements without constant manual intervention. AI automation frees team members to focus on more valuable, strategic tasks requiring human insight and creativity.

With AI, marketing teams no longer need to allocate extensive resources to tedious and time-consuming tasks.

3. Efficiency

AI enhances the efficiency of marketing operations by accelerating processes and reducing the potential for human error. When you use digital asset management platforms with AI tools like AI-powered search and image recognition, you streamline asset search and retrieval tasks that would otherwise take considerable time and effort.

As a result, team members can concentrate on business-critical tasks and areas where human insight is most valuable. By focusing on what they excel at, teams can bring products and campaigns to market faster, creating more value for the business. Shifting focus away from tedious tasks helps your team optimize time and ensure that every part of the marketing process gets executed accurately and quickly.

Six ways of using AI in marketing

Image of various icons showing the ways AI can help marketers over a green background.

From managing your marketing collateral to making your marketing collaborative, there are six primary ways to implement AI in your business marketing.

1. AI content management

Using AI for content management helps marketers handle larger volumes of content more effectively.

Here’s how AI can reduce repetitive content management tasks, tailor offerings to user preferences, and optimize strategies:

  • Asset management: AI-powered digital asset management (DAM) platforms such as Canto organize and manage the increasing volume of content generated by AI-powered marketing activities. Storing all your digital marketing assets inside a DAM ensures they’re organized, searchable, and shareable.
  • Content curation: AI algorithms efficiently sift through extensive content libraries to surface and recommend the most relevant articles, videos, and posts. Curating content helps ensure that the most appropriate content reaches the right audience.
  • Content analytics: AI can identify what engages users most effectively by analyzing how different content types perform. Insights from AI analytics help marketers refine their content strategies, focusing efforts on what truly resonates with their audience.

2. Content creation

Using AI for content creation augments your existing team’s creativity –– you’re no longer limited by your team’s headcount. Instead, you can quickly generate multiple copy and visual media variations to see what performs best with your audience.

  • Ad copy generation: Use AI text generators to create and test ad copy, identifying which messages resonate best with your target audiences. Platforms like ChatGPT and Writer are helpful for generating text.
  • Design creation: AI design generators like Visme and Canva can create visual graphics for your campaigns, saving time and resources.
  • Video production: Use AI tools to cut and edit video footage as well as generate footage you may not be able to shoot easily.

3. Analytics

AI-driven marketing significantly enhances analytics capabilities. Marketers can proactively adjust their strategies by predicting future trends and customer behaviors. Marketers with foresight can manage marketing resources more efficiently and capitalize on emerging opportunities.

With AI’s ability to continuously analyze data and provide insights, marketers can optimize their campaigns in real-time.

AI automates the labor-intensive process of data analysis, so marketers can focus on more strategic aspects of their work. Your team will save time and reduce human error, resulting in more reliable data insights.

You could use AI-powered marketing analytics in these ways:

  • Predictive analytics: AI can analyze past marketing data and consumer behavior to forecast future trends. Marketers can anticipate customer needs, optimize campaign strategies, and improve overall decision-making.
  • Customer data analytics: AI tools can sift through large customer data sets to identify patterns and insights. With data analysis in hand, marketers can make better decisions about messaging personalization and audience targeting.

4. Work management

Integrating AI into work management streamlines operations and ensures marketing projects are delivered on time and within budget.

Try integrating AI into your work management processes, including:

  • Task automation: Deploy AI to automate routine marketing tasks, such as generating and categorizing tasks. Your team will then have more time to focus on time-sensitive projects that require human insights.
  • Project management: Use AI tools to enhance project oversight by predicting timelines, efficiently allocating resources, and tracking campaign progress in real time.

5. Productivity

By adopting a few AI-driven strategies, marketing teams can achieve more in less time. Instead of pulling reports or analyzing SEO tactics manually, AI tools can handle these elements, leaving more time for valuable strategic and creative tasks.

AI can help marketers with productivity in several ways:

  • Automated reporting: AI tools can generate real-time reports and dashboards, allowing teams to monitor key marketing metrics and make quick, data-driven decisions.
  • Intelligent assistants: AI-powered assistants can manage schedules, set reminders, and prioritize tasks, enhancing daily efficiency.
  • SEO: Use AI to analyze search patterns and optimize content, ensuring better visibility and engagement with target audiences.

6. Automation

Using AI to automate routine and complex tasks lets teams operate more efficiently and focus on strategy and growth.

  • Email marketing: Use AI to determine optimal send times and automate email responses based on customer interactions.
  • Customer relationship management (CRM): Implement AI in your CRM system to automate lead scoring, predict deal closures, and craft personalized messages.
  • Chatbots: Deploy AI-powered chatbots to manage customer support inquiries, provide immediate responses, and direct queries to appropriate teams.
  • Advertising optimization: Use AI to refine bidding strategies and ad placements, maximizing return on ad spend.
  • Social media monitoring: Use AI to continuously scan social media channels for brand sentiment.

Five steps for an integrated AI marketing strategy

Ready to prioritize AI business marketing? Follow these five steps to implement an AI-powered marketing strategy.

1. Identify where your marketing organization could benefit most from AI

Start by assessing your marketing operations to pinpoint areas where AI can create serious impact. Look for tasks that are repetitive, time-consuming, or data-intensive, including:

  • Content management
  • Content creation
  • Customer segmentation
  • Ad placement

A digital asset management platform like Canto helps manage the large amount of content your team creates and should be the foundation of your marketing stack. Then, as you add tools to your tech stack, ensure they integrate with your DAM platform.

2. Map marketing goals to AI marketing tool capabilities

Make sure the AI tools you choose directly support your key marketing goals. Start by ensuring your AI tools map to today’s marketing objectives — and can also easily scale up to match the needs of future marketing programs.

Consider AI capabilities to enhance customer engagement, conversion rates, or ad spending.

3. Implement AI marketing tools that integrate with your marketing tech stack

Choose AI marketing tools that complement your existing marketing technology stack. For example, an AI-powered DAM platform like Canto lets you manage all your marketing campaign content workflows and create a cohesive MarTech ecosystem.

A cohesive marketing toolkit is key to data flow, increased productivity, and scalability. Choose AI tools that integrate with your existing stack to streamline workflows. Proper integration allows for a unified approach, enhancing your ability to execute effective marketing strategies.

4. Monitor the latest AI marketing technology trends

Monitor the latest developments in AI marketing technology regularly. Keeping up with new tools, features, and best practices ensures your marketing strategy remains innovative and competitive.

Look for tools that provide what you need today and in the not-so-distant future, like Canto AI Visual Search. When you find new tools or trends, benchmark these tools against your existing stack by assessing their integration capabilities, scalability, and potential to enhance your current workflows.

5. Evolve your strategy

Regularly review and adjust your strategy as you gather insights from using AI in your marketing. Experiment with new AI functionalities as they become available, and refine your approach based on performance data and changing market conditions.

You’ll maintain an effective AI-driven marketing strategy when you commit to evolving your toolkit.

The best AI marketing tech stacks include Canto

Image popped out from a Canto content library alongside AI tool icons over an orange background.

Canto is the leading AI-powered digital asset management platform, making it easy to manage marketing content for campaigns of all sizes. Canto’s DAM platform simplifies marketing activities across the content lifecycle and reduces resources spent on manual tasks and workflows. With Canto, you’ll find it much easier to keep your library of marketing assets organized and searchable.

Canto is building the AI search technology marketers need for tomorrow, not just today. Canto is continuously developing its AI offerings — transforming content operations so you can leverage your content to meet strategic goals and drive revenue.

Ready to use AI in your marketing? Learn how to start using an AI-powered digital asset management platform today.