31Oct 23 AI and Its Overwhelming Impacts on Digital Marketers

The rapid growth of AI has left many professionals in a state of uncertainty.

Questions like “Will I be replaced by AI?” or “Will I have to develop other skills from scratch?” are very understandable to invade the minds.

And it’s especially true for the digital marketing experts, but in a different light.

SEO marketers can excel in the presence of AI, unlike other job roles. But the problem arises due to the lack of information.

According to a recent SOCi survey, 70% of marketers are overwhelmed by AI development and its rapid involvement in digital marketing strategies. The survey was conducted on 317 digital marketing experts from American B2C companies. They shared the struggles they face nowadays to keep up with the AI tools in marketing and their application.

On the other hand, it’s interesting to note that 44% of participants expressed that the frequent introduction of AI tools is actually confusing and is negatively affecting their marketing methods. The lack of proper knowledge and training might be the main reason behind it. As a matter of fact, 42% of respondees have admitted that they have never received prior training to operate AI, meaning, they fail to properly apply the functionalities of these AI tools.

The Growing Pressure

Most marketers are not keen to include AI in their work process. Moreover, most of the marketers who were surveyed explained how using these tools hinders their creativity as these tools don’t allow them to come up with new solutions or ideas.

A survey was recently conducted on 4,000 creative leaders and marketers across 9 countries by research firm Morning Consult and Canva. 69% of the respondents said that there are too many AI tools used in marketing which makes the selection process that much harder. 65% are worried about the learning curve while 54% of respondents expressed that they feel pressured to match the growing pace.

Another factor that has been an issue when dealing with AI is ensuring data privacy. Security risk to client, company, and personal data is a huge concern for three-quarters of the respondents. There is also a growing concern about discrimination in AI-generated content among 71% of respondents.

However, these concerns can be managed easily by setting up certain rules and regulations when using AI applications. According to 55% of respondents, their company has already established such guidelines to eliminate privacy issues.

How AI Is Transforming Digital Marketing?

AI has been a blessing for business owners seeking to market their brands seamlessly. However, SEO marketers need to grasp the complete concept of this technology as by doing so they cannot only speed up their work but improve the effectiveness of their strategies.

Here are a couple of ways, AI is boosting marketers’ efforts:

Improved User Experience

Ai is a skilled artist when it comes to scanning through enormous loads of data. And you, as a marketer, can use it to their advantage. By analyzing customer data and their behavior patterns on their website, AI can offer you an assessment of their preferences and interests. With another AI tool, marketers can then align their campaign goals and approaches with the found insights to boost the success rate of their AI marketing strategy.

Optimized Ad Targeting and Budgeting

Because AI can efficiently assess data and offer bulletproof outcomes, you can properly plan your ad campaigns and their budgets accurately. As a result, you will be reaching your targeted audiences with every ad campaign without wasting a single extra penny.

AI Marketing Automation

Boosting SEO takes time and repeating certain SEO tasks, which not only takes effort but a lot of time, Well, AI is all about saving effort and time. You can automate some repetitive SEO practices to save your time for other important chores. Tasks like sending and creating email campaigns, lead scoring as well as creating social media posts.

Predictive Analytics

Assessing customer behavior patterns and data, AI can also predict the future needs, actions, and interests of your customers. This way, you will be able to stay one step ahead as you can tailor all your strategies accordingly.

AI is here to stay, so it’s only logical to use it to our advantage.

Challenges of Implementing AI in Marketing

Despite having all these advantages, implementing AI will not be as smooth for the time being. Because the concept of AI is still new, hence, it comes with its own limitations. Here are some challenges you can face while using AI for marketing:

Lack of Emotions

AI in the end is a technology, a programming devoid of empathy and any emotions. While AI can speed up the technical part of a task, it cannot meet the emotional aspect of the same task. And it is especially problematic when it comes to handling customers with negative responses. In sensitive situations, the responses from AI assistants will seem robotic, unhinged, and tone-deaf.

Lack of Ethical Values

Just like the emotional aspect, AI is also devoid of ethical understanding. AI can scan through biased and unfair data and reflect the same biases in the resolution. Because that’s how it’s programmed. Developers should address this issue as soon as possible to avoid unfairness and negative impacts on marginalized groups. Meanwhile, marketers should keep a keen eye on AI-generated outcomes to detect any hint of bias.

Job Disruption

It’s a fact that AI has been a blessing for many business owners to cut off significant amounts of operational costs by automating a lot of tasks. On the other hand, the same advantage has been a curse for many human employees as they are at risk of losing their jobs due to the availability of their AI counterparts. Even though AI will create new job variations, conventional job roles will go extinct causing uncertainty for many people, and that also includes digital marketers. To save yourself from this AI impact on marketing, you should focus on the skills AI lacks, for example, creativity, critical problem-solving skills, and emotional intelligence.

Lack of Clarity

At the end of the day, AI is a technology, one that many of us are still unable to comprehend. Many of the processes AI goes through involve complicated algorithms and scanning abundant amounts of data at a rapid speed. Some of these procedures are only manageable by their developers, which brings uncertainty and causes a lack of trust as well as confidence for marketers. Marketers need to comprehend the decision-making procedure for measuring the outcomes correctly so that they can cultivate AI marketing plans in the future to guarantee success. But AI models make it hard for marketers to do that, hence, making it problematic to find solutions that may be brought by AI applications in SEO marketing.

A simple solution for this problem can be being selective when choosing AI-produced solutions. Focus more on human skills to make your campaign more transparent until AI can offer clarity. By combining AI and human strengths, digital marketers can get the best of both worlds.

The Key to Future-Proof Your Career in Digital Marketing in the AI Era

AI and human can coexist with prosperity (despite what Hollywood show us)! As a marketer, you need to do what you have always been doing before the invention of AI to maintain your worth. And that is developing skills, most importantly skills that cannot be attained by AI. We have mentioned this before but let’s dive deep into it…

Creative Skills Development

AI can do many things, but being creative isn’t one of them. Even if they tried, they would come up with a bunch of ideas that are molded into the same structure, in short, the responses are robotic.

You can work on developing these skills:

• Storytelling – A brand can be more appealing to its targeted audience if they have a compelling story to share. A human storyteller is the best person to create such narratives as AI cannot bond with people on an emotional level, especially if it’s through storytelling.
• Copywriting – AI can generate heaps of words, but setting the tone, establishing a narrative, and such creative requirements won’t be met by it. Only a human writer can produce highly engaging copies such as social media posts, blog posts, and articles.
• Visual Design – AI needs human direction when designing striking images, highly aesthetic videos, and other visual content. Sure, AI can create a basic design but human touch can make it more appealing.

Strategic Thinking Development

With the advancement of AI, the need for human insights such as strategic thinking and judgment will become more crucial. Here are some of the skills you need to build:

• Critical Thinking – AI has limited critical thinking capabilities. It can scan through a load of data but cannot evaluate the information. Ideas and arguments objectively.
• Vision – It’s not in AI’s programming to envision creative solutions and revolutionary ideas or strategies. It needs human assistance when coming up with new ideas that are specifically tailored to a situation.
• Judgment – AI can offer resolution fast but it might not be accurate as AI offer result based on a certain pattern and a set of guidelines. Therefore, the judgment of the AI-produced results cannot be trusted.

Emotional Intelligence Development

Last but not least, emotional intelligence is one of the factors that AI lacks to develop. It might be able to imitate a fraction of emotional expressions but the technology will still lack the sincirety.

• Communication – Although many companies have already employed AI assistance to handle the basic queries of their customers, human employees are still delegated to handle more critical problems. Understanding the tone and urgency is still not adopted by AI chatbots hence these tools cannot ensure an engaging customer experience.
• Empathy – Being empathetic is not possible by AI yet. Clients who are in emotional distress require a human conversationalist who will show empathy during the interactions.
• Building Relationships – Forming a connection with customers that is genuine can, in the end, end up profiting the business. And doing so is not possible with AI assistants.

Conclusion

There you have it. We have tried to cover all the reasons why digital marketers are feeling overwhelmed due to AI implementation and their possible solutions. We hope this list of tips helps you address the issues and reverse them.

On the other hand, you can contact the experts at Use Per Wish. With the help of our expert digital market and AI experts, you can successfully implement AI tools into your digital marketing strategies and see visible improvements. Our customer care executives are available 24/7 to assist you with any queries. Give our Smart Trial Plan a try today!