ChatGPT broke records when the app grew to 100M monthly active users in early 2022, just two months after launch. Seemingly overnight, everyone started to experiment with ChatGPT, a generative AI content creation tool and DALL-E-2, an AI-powered image generator, both powered by OpenAI.
Despite AI having been part of the backend of tools marketers use every day for many years now, these generative AI apps have seemed like magic in the demanding world of content marketing.
AI for marketing is still new, but it’s actively changing how brands operate. Searches for “AI marketing jobs” have skyrocketed since early 2023 and there are already over 1,500 AI marketing jobs on Indeed.
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Brands have to be methodical about bringing AI marketing tools into their daily workflows. They need to vet each tool and have a good understanding of how to use them. And many companies have concerns about whether their data or proprietary information is secure in AI tools.
Here’s how SaaS marketing teams are using AI in content marketing and bringing AI tools into their everyday marketing strategy.
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How are SaaS marketing teams actually using AI tools?
Ideas for ways marketing teams can use AI for content marketing
AI tools are only as creative as the content marketers who use them
How are SaaS marketing teams actually using AI tools?
1. Creating content briefs and planning campaigns
AI tools can help with content management and overall campaign planning. The team at Jasper.ai uses their own AI content tools to get aligned around new campaigns, create briefs, and accelerate content production.
“We use AI to get our entire team aligned around a campaign. We upload a creative brief with our key points and messaging into Jasper – our AI platform – and then have AI spin up the first draft of the blog posts, emails, social posts and more. Because Jasper knows our core messaging and has been trained on our brand voice, all pieces are aligned. Then each channel owner revises the first draft from that strong foundation to use in their strategies. The end result is better aligned messaging and accelerated outputs,” shared Meghan Keaney Anderson, Vice President of Marketing at Jasper.ai.
2. Internal communication and alignment
According to the latest HubSpot State of Marketing, marketing teams are launching an average of nine campaigns each quarter. That’s a lot of briefs, coordination, and planning. AI is helping accelerate planning by summarizing kickoff calls and generating first drafts of blog posts and emails. At Gympass, an employee wellbeing app, their marketing team uses AI tools to plan for new campaigns and draft internal communications.
“We’re using AI tools to summarize meetings notes and outline first drafts of internal communications for things like an email to the team about an upcoming campaign launch or an overview of our next marketing offsite,” said Ryan Bonnici, Chief Marketing Officer at Gympass.
3. Generative AI for content creation, audio, and advertising
At this point, generative AI tools are helpful for first drafts, outlines, and briefs — not for finished content products. But oftentimes, just having something to edit can help move the creative process forward faster. Marketing teams are using generative AI to develop blogs, sections of reports, thought leadership content, advertising copy, and audio tracks to supplement blogs.
When promoting a campaign, consider using generative AI to put together optimized advertising headlines to test, social media post copy, and emails.
“We’re using AI to write the initial drafts of our SEO blogs and sections of our thought leadership reports and white papers. Our content team then goes in and edits the AI drafts. We’re using Jasper to write certain parts of our email newsletter and will soon use it to create our infographics, though we are still testing that. We are also getting ready to roll out Play.ht, which is an AI audio reader that will allow us to automatically embed audio versions of our blogs (and reports) into the content,” explained Bonnici.
4. Video storyboarding, creation, and editing
Video production teams spend a lot of time editing and poring through hours of footage. With AI tools, it’s easier to storyboard a concept using a platform like Midjourney, then capture more precise footage up front. The marketing team at Wistia is using AI tools like ChatGPT for video ideation and other AI video apps for brainstorming, editing, and video production.
5. Customer support and marketing
AI is a perfect solution for quickly routing urgent customer requests or opportunities to the right people much faster than a human could. “We’re assessing providers that can support the integration of AI into our self service channels and hope to roll that out soon,” said Bonnici.
Tools like Slang.ai and Lang.ai are designed to automatically detect the most pressing support inquiries, improving the customer experience and reducing overall support needs and costs.
Ideas for ways marketing teams can use AI for content marketing
With the influx of new apps to try and AI features within existing marketing platforms, the possibilities are endless. Here are a few ways to consider adding AI tools to your SaaS marketing strategy.
Optimize audience segments
Rather than building out lists and segments based on your own customer research, try using AI to select similar groups of customers who share characteristics. Compare segment performance versus past segments and run ongoing tests.
Peak.ai is an app specifically designed for AI-powered customer segmentation and personalization. Lucky Orange also has a feature called Optimizable Segments that helps to surface engaged members of your audience — and you can track performance against your company’s preferred KPIs.
Streamline the customer journey
AI tools are helping people get the information they want about new products and services, faster. Marketing teams can use AI chatbots, proactive customer service based on data-driven indicators from their account, and other AI tools to streamline the customer experience.
Develop surveys for market research
Market research reports are one of the most effective ways to reach potential customers, arm your sales team with data that supports your business, and provide existing customers with valuable insights to grow. SurveyMonkey recently launched SurveyMonkey Genius, an AI-powered survey tool to help teams develop questions strategically to get the best possible results.
Improve content accessibility
Semrush has a new AI-powered tool to scan content for accessibility using WCAG standards. Marketers can use AI to check if their content meets accessibility standards, quickly make any needed changes, and publish content that reaches a wider audience.
AI tools are only as creative as the content marketers who use them
AI tools can help accelerate campaigns, speed up content creation, and align teams. They can cut down on editing steps and help creative teams visualize concepts without having to build out the whole creative deliverable. And they can help marketing teams better understand the customer journey. But behind the AI tools you need smart people with a strong background in marketing, data analysis, and problem solving.
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