5 Ways to Start Using AI in Your Marketing Today

5 Ways to Start Using AI in Your Marketing Today written by Editor read more at Duct Tape Marketing

AI is the future of marketing.

According to a study by Quantcast and Forbes,  AI helps marketers to boost sales, increase customer retention, and succeed at new product launches.

This post will provide you with practical and useful examples to understand a bit more about AI and how it can help your marketing team do all of that and more.

What is AI?

The simplest way to think about AI is to see it as a tool or system that has the ability to learn and predict. It can comprehend what we want, or it can learn from its mistakes, and then predict what we might want the next time.

AI is all around us. Every time we ask Siri something, it learns and gets smarter understanding what we're asking, who we are, and what we want to know.

Anytime we ask for directions on Google Maps, AI processes and learns what is going on around us through traffic patterns and how cars are moving.

There are some AI tools that use existing data to make new content. Article writers, for example, can create original content because they scan and take in all of the information available on the Internet.

There's also AI that uses trial and error. The AI-driven chess computer that gets better and better and eventually beats everybody learns from what the opponent did, and processes all that information to come to a better result.

The thing all of these tools have in common is that they take in information, learn from it, and can make informed future decisions all on their own.

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AI and Content Marketing

Content has become a crucial part of digital marketing in recent years. In fact, content is now the primary focus for most marketing teams. 

The problem is that creating long-form content, On-page SEO, and social media posts can be extremely time-consuming. Even more challenging is coming up with ideas that your audience will find interesting and engaging.

AI tools are making it easier for marketers to streamline their content creation processes. From generating ideas to choosing images for your blog posts, AI moves the implementation work to a place where it can be done effectively, even with the smallest of teams.

Is AI going to make us obsolete as marketers?

AI is not going to make agencies, marketers, or business owners obsolete, but it is going to make us more efficient. It becomes a competitive advantage if an agency can produce 10 times more content than before.

However, AI is not going to process emotion, is not going to be able to process an opportunity, is not going to understand a gut feeling you have or relationships that it can lean on, and it's not going to replace strategic thinking.

5 practical ways to use AI in your marketing today

 Use AI for your long-form content

Long-form content has become one of the hardest things for smaller marketing teams or smaller agencies to produce because it's so time-consuming and yet it is so essential for end users and the educational approaches that we have today.

Here are some of the ways to use Writesonic – An AI tool we frequently use –to helps create better long-form content:

• You can use Writesonic to help you create a fully customized blog outline. The AI content tool does this by scanning the Internet and choosing content based on what people are searching for online. This allows you to then easily fill in the rest. 
• Writesonic uses AI to make long-from content more engaging, relevant, and attractive for readers. This can decrease your blogs bounce rate and increase your overall visibility online.
• Connect Writesonic with an SEO tool like Semrush to optimize your long-form content towards your target keywords and audiences.
• If you are creating content for new clients, Writesonic can save you tons of time by completing the initial background research for you.

Spend more time creating a stellar experience for your leads & beat your competition

Sample Writesonic for free

Disclosure: Duct Tape Marketing is a Writesonic affiliate and may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this post. Duct Tape Marketing would never endorse products or services it has not tested or does not use.

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AI for Metadata and SEO

Good SEO practice is a necessary process that takes time and effort. However, much of it can be repetitive and time-consuming. Tasks like creating SEO-optimized titles, creating the right meta tags, or keyword research can now easily be automated with AI.

How can AI tools produce better results for SEO?

Doing keyword research manually is time-consuming. AI tools help you streamline this process by crawling relevant content on the internet and then giving you questions, keywords, and information that people are looking for in Google, so you can create more valuable blog posts or pages.

AI tools like Writesonic can also help you write engaging and optimized titles and meta descriptions in seconds by simply typing in an overview of the topic. It’s a great way to save time and free up your marketing team to focus on more innovative and strategic tasks.

Q&A is another essential feature that can boost your SEO results. With today's AI tools you can easily create highly relevant Q&A content, that you can use in Quora, Reddit forums, or in relevant Facebook Groups.

Add copy and variations

Google Ads now gives you the ability to create up to 15 headlines for your search ads. It takes time and brain cycles to write those ads.

AI tools can automatically produce these variations for you in the format that Google, YouTube or any other platform will understand. The ad copy will also be automatically optimized for higher click-trough rates based on past campaign performances. 

Additionally, AI recognizes that people on LinkedIn write differently than on Facebook, so you can customize tone based on the platform.

Below is another example of using Google headlines. Some of them are great, and some maybe don't hit the mark, but it gives you a quick sample of things to start working with.

By having 10 different ad copies to test, you whittle down and find the winner. It makes the creation of the ad variations much faster and efficient.

Social Media Content

Brands need to create and publish content every day on several different platforms. 

One of my favorite ways to produce social media content is to break one big piece of content into many pieces. So, you can take an article that you've already written, put it into your AI tool, select the social media platform and the tool can generate weeks worth of posts from that one piece of content.

AI tools can also generate content ideas, hooks, and captions with just a topic or a few keywords.   

Some AI tools can even create complete posts for you, give you a mixture of Instagram captions, descriptions for your YouTube videos, titles, script hooks for TikTok, and more.

Content repurposing

Content repurposing has become a big topic. Constantly refreshing content can be a powerful way to impact your SEO without having to write new content. AI tools can easily accomplish this task in seconds. 

AI can also help you shorten content. For example If you have a blog post that people love, but you need to shorten it in order to repost to LinkedIn, AI can do that. 

Start using AI tools to help you create great content, and save you time, and money

Start your free trial

AI tools are great for getting more content and finding easy ways to boost your SEO. Utilize these powerful tools today along with some editing and styling to boost your results in marketing.

It is not a 'cut and paste' solution, but it does get you closer to an optimal result.

Now that you know this, it is time to identify some aspects where you can improve your marketing efforts using AI today.

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Why Relationship Marketing Is Essential To B2B Lead Generation

One of the oldest, and creepiest, adages about the value of content marketing is that you can’t ask someone to marry you on the first date. Weird as it might feel, there’s a good reason this metaphor has held sway. A marriage is a serious and high-stakes commitment, and nobody wants to enter one without truly feeling like they know and trust their future partner. In the business realm, purchase influencers and decision makers are under huge pressure to get it right. It’s not enough to understand the product, its price, or its features. Buyers want to believe in the brand and the people behind it. Increasingly, significant business purchases need to be buoyed by a strong relationship. (The non-romantic type, to be clear.) Smart and strategic content marketing is how those relationships are built.

What Is Relationship Marketing?

The Association of National Advertisers defines relationship marketing as “a strategy of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) that emphasizes customer retention, satisfaction, and lifetime customer value.” Personally I think that description only partially covers the breadth of the strategy and its purpose. As we’ll explore today, relationship marketing is also a powerful – even essential – tool for attracting new high-quality B2B leads that are more likely to convert. For this reason, I prefer the broader definition provided by HubSpot: “Relationship marketing refers to the marketing strategy of cultivating more meaningful relationships with customers to ensure long-term satisfaction and brand loyalty.” The process of ensuring long-term satisfaction and brand loyalty can start long before someone makes a purchase with you.

Content is the currency of relationship marketing

There are plenty of jargony definitions of content marketing out there, but what it comes down to is this: creating something of value to a specific type of audience, as a means of bringing those individuals into your brand’s orbit. Great content is what attracts the right people and sparks the journey. It’s also what sustains and builds upon these relationships. Nine out of 10 B2B buyers say online content has a major or moderate impact on vendor selection. Simply put, content marketing is your chance to make a first impression that leads to a lasting, fruitful relationship. [bctt tweet="“Content marketing is your chance to make a first impression that leads to a lasting, fruitful relationship.” — Nick Nelson @NickNelsonMN" username="toprank"]

Benefits of Building Relationships with B2B Content

Why make content-fueled relationship marketing a fixture in your B2B strategy? Here are five compelling reasons. 1 — Leads are more qualified and advanced The beauty of a smart SEO-driven content strategy focused on intent is this: audiences engaging with your content are inherently qualifying themselves. By searching out articles, guides, podcasts, or videos focusing on subjects and pain points pertinent to your category, they are raising their hands as the kind of people you want to create trust and awareness with. And when they find quality content from your brand that best answers their questions, you start doing just that. It’s no surprise, then, that organic search routinely drives the highest conversion rates of any traffic source. (Source) 2 — Strong relationships weather the storms of tough times Business leaders are bracing for a recession in 2023. Economic downturns force difficult decisions. The strong relationships survive. Research shows brands that continue to invest in advertising during recessions tend to come out stronger on the other end than those that don’t. Why? Because they stayed present for their audiences during a tough period, even while recognizing that purchasing activity may be scaled back. Strong relationships weather the storms of tough times … especially when they are forged during tough times. [bctt tweet="“Strong relationships weather the storms of tough times … especially when they are forged during tough times.” — Nick Nelson @NickNelsonMN" username="toprank"] 3 — Lopsided focus on demand generation leads to poor results It is well understood throughout the world of marketing that strong brand awareness contributes to better lead gen ROI. People are more likely to respond to your sales activation campaigns when they’re familiar with your brand. There’s a reason why campaigns focusing on both brand and acquisition perform six times better than acquisition-only campaigns. It’s much the same reason 75% of shoppers say they’re more likely to buy from a company that knows their name and purchase history. (Source) There’s plenty more data to reinforce this idea, but you probably don’t even need it. Just think about how familiarity and affinity influence decisions in your own life. When you’re choosing a doctor, a babysitter, a financial advisor… with all other things being equal, you’re going to go with the one you already know and like. Right? Not only does a sharp relationship-focused content strategy help generate demand and convert more customers, it also makes those customers more invested in your brand, increasing the likelihood of upsells, cross-sells, and referrals. 4 — Gain deeper insight about your target audience A key byproduct of engaging more frequently and intentionally with your prospects and customers is that you learn a lot about them through the process. You find out what type of content they’re engaging with, what channels they’re showing up on, and what they really care about. The folks at Accenture put together a great playbook on “life centricity,” or the idea of driving growth through relevance. “To move toward life centricity,” the brief explains, “executives need to see their customers as multifaceted and understand the complex external forces that impact them.” Step one? “Gain a profound understanding of people.” Relationship marketing, and the data it derives, are among the most effective ways to gain this understanding. 5 — Well liked brands can charge more premium pricing One of the biggest ways an outstanding brand can add value, aside from attracting and retaining customers, is by enhancing perceived value and enabling you to charge more for goods and services. Based in consumer psychology, this approach to premium pricing can create a virtuous loop. People will pay more for products or services from a brand they think highly of; meanwhile, when other people see that the brand charges higher prices, they perceive it as being higher-quality or more luxurious than others. This is not to say anyone should be inflating prices or ripping off their customers. But when companies put real effort into building relationships through their content, service, and resources, it becomes a tangible value-add that justifies a higher price. I’ll pay more for a pair of shoes if I know their customer service department has my back. I’ll pay more for an ebook if the author automatically opts me into his secret email club. In the business world, even when a solution fits your needs, there can be real headaches down the line if the company behind it isn’t rock solid. Buyers will pay more to avoid those headaches, and they’ll be happy they did. Relationship-focused content sends that message.

Build Relationships with B2B Leads to Boost Your Pipeline

As B2B grows more complex, more digital, and more impersonal, those companies that focus on creating connections with their audience and making their brand as desirable as their offerings will be the ones that lead the way – even (or especially) in challenging economic times. It all begins with a thoughtful, audience-first B2B content marketing strategy. If you’re ready to put yours into motion and reach the next level with relationship marketing, we can help.

The post Why Relationship Marketing Is Essential To B2B Lead Generation appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

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Weekend Favs November 5

Weekend Favs November 5 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

• Streak – is a CRM Platform Built directly inside Gmail that allows you to manage any workflow from your inbox. From sending personalized emails and keeping track of leads to accessing information about pipelines, contacts, and tasks directly from Gmail. 
• Exact buyer is an AI-powered business search engine that helps you find your perfect customer, hire or partner in seconds. Just type in what you need, and the tool will filter through certifications, interests, job descriptions, technological sophistication, and over 90,000+ attributes of top companies and professionals.
• Hypotenuse AI – is an AI Writer that helps you write marketing content in seconds. Just provide a few keywords, and Hypotenuse will instantly turn them into blog posts, product descriptions, or marketing content so you can free up your team or focus on more creative tasks. The copy is always realistic and fluent.

These are my weekend favs; I would love to hear about some of yours – Tweet me @ducttape

If you want to check out more Weekend Favs you can find them here.

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B2B Marketing News: Rising B2B Content Creation Budgets, Proving ROI Is Top ABM Challenge, & Google’s Updated Business Profiles

5 Predictions For B2B CMOs To Win In 2023 [Forrester Report] 20 percent more B2B demand teams will report to sales in 2023, with 10 percent of marketing automation budgets moving from transformation to resilience, while 40 percent of firms will shift to cloud-native-first strategies — three of numerous findings of interest to B2B marketers contained in recently-released B2B CMO report data. Forbes What’s Driving Budget Changes for B2B Marketers? [Survey] 43 percent of B2B marketers have said that their marketing budgets have increased since 2021, with 32 percent noting a decrease, with the top reasons for budget changes being inflation, the pandemic, economic recession, and world geopolitical unstability, according to newly-released survey data. MarketingCharts After Elon Musk’s antics on Twitter, advertisers may think twice for now Advertisers are maneuvering and rethinking options in the wake of Twitter's $44 billion sale to Elon Musk, weighing moves ranging from suspending use of the social media platform to reducing spending, among other choices, and CNN takes a look at how some advertisers are handling the ownership shift at Twitter. CNN [bctt tweet="“It seems like a reasonable time for advertisers to rethink things. I think advertisers are going to look at this and say, is the weak Twitter advertising product becoming a better or worse investment?” — David Karpf @davekarpf" username="toprank"] Meta Opens Up Facebook’s ‘Professional Mode’ to All Creators Globally Meta-owned Facebook has proceeded with a full rollout of its professional mode, which will allow B2B creators and influencers to expand their Facebook presence with a variety of content-promotion options, along with a variety of content monetization tools, the social media platform recently announced. Social Media Today What Changes Are B2B Marketers Anticipating to Their Budgets Next Year? 54 percent of B2B marketers have said that in 2023 they will spend more on content creation, with the same percentage pinpointing digital marketing investment, while 47 percent noted an increase in marketing operations and technology budgets, and the same percentage expecting to spend more on demand generation in 2023, according to newly-released survey data examining the biggest budget increases that B2B marketers have planned for 2023. MarketingCharts Companies face critical customer experience resource shortages More than 80 percent of customer experience (CX) leaders have said that they planned to utilize outsourcing in 2022, with only 27 percent of CX leaders reporting that they have their own budget, while 53 percent noted that they have experienced staffing shortages and labor challenges, according to recently-published CX research data of interest to B2B marketers. Insider Intelligence New Google Business Profile Web Search Menu Now Rolling Out Search giant Google has released its newest update, which has given businesses an expanded set of options and simpler access for editing business profiles. The more robust Google Business Profile capabilities allow brands to more easily access and edit their organization's profile from Google Web Search, Google recently announced. SEO Roundtable What Are ABM Practitioners’ Top Challenges? 39 percent of B2B marketing executives have indicated that proving return on investment (ROI) was their top account-based marketing (ABM) challenge, with 38 percent pinpointing sales and marketing alignment, and 34 percent noting scaled personalization for target accounts as their leading obstacle — some of the findings included in newly-released survey results. MarketingCharts YouTube Announces Interface Makeover Google's YouTube video platform has launched a user interface revamp, with new features including ambient mode background color matching, a dark mode, and description link buttons, among other changes that have rolled out with YouTube’s latest visual update, YouTube recently announced. MediaPost The Factors That Most Influence Buyers of B2B Services 30.2 percent of B2B professionals have said that a business' online and offline reputation was their top determining factor when it comes to choosing a B2B service, with 72.1 percent of B2B buyers having noted that they prefer email for communicating with B2B sellers, while a leading 26.2 percent of B2B buyers noted that finding a product's features was the number one piece of information that they looked to find on a service provider's website. MarketingProfs ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: A lighthearted look at “Decisions, Decisions” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist Redditor acquires decommissioned Netflix cache server with 262TB of storage — Ars Technica TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• Nick Nelson — This Week in Marketing: All Treats, No Tricks — LinkedIn (client)
• Lee Odden — 3 lessons corporate blogs can learn from personal blogs — Arik Hanson

Have you found top B2B marketing news for the week that we haven't yet mentioned? If so, please don't hesitate to drop us a line in the comments below. Thanks for taking the time to tune in to this week's TopRank Marketing B2B marketing news, and we hope that you'ill return again next Friday for another roundup of the most up-to-date and pertinent B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us on our LinkedIn page, or at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news.

The post B2B Marketing News: Rising B2B Content Creation Budgets, Proving ROI Is Top ABM Challenge, & Google’s Updated Business Profiles appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

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Community Influence: B2B Influencer Marketing & The Ascent of Digital Communities

Just how important have digital communities become today, and why does the rising trust we place in them harmonize so well with B2B influencer marketing? It’s no secret that the world has become digital-first during the pandemic, but one change that may surprise many is just how important online communities have become. People have shifted to identifying the most closely with their online communities, for the first time surpassing traditional non-digital community groups, a change borne out by recent survey data. A simultaneous pandemic change has seen trust in brands and marketers falling significantly, with 50 percent of U.S. consumers finding it difficult to trust brands since the pandemic began, according to report data from Salesforce. The public’s perception and trust of the advertising and public relations industry has fallen to new lows according to one recent Gallup poll. A scant 26 percent of U.S. adults said that they see PR and advertising in a somewhat or very positive light, bottoming out even more than the previous low of 27 percent in 2008, with net-positive ratings now even lower than during 2003’s previous record low, according to the newly-published poll data. Thankfully, just as brand and advertising trust has fallen, the ascent of the importance of digital communities has created a counter-weight — one that is well-poised to take advantage of the power of influence and trust: B2B influencer marketing. “Consumers need to be able to trust the content they engage with, so expect 2023 to show an increased demand for integrity and authenticity that brands and social media channels will have to adapt to,” Elizabeth Wiredu recently observed for PRWeek in “What are the top 10 social media trends for 2023?” “Brands will move further away from personas and target their broader brand communities. In these spaces, it’s less about the influencer broadcasting content and more about the exchange between all community members,” Wiredu added. [bctt tweet="“Consumers need to be able to trust the content they engage with, so expect 2023 to show an increased demand for integrity and authenticity that brands and social media channels will have to adapt to.” — Elizabeth Wiredu @elizasjournal" username="toprank"] B2B influencer marketing is the business-oriented cousin to the B2C Instagram entertainment and lifestyle influencer. In B2B, some influencers go by creators, subject matter experts, industry experts, or other terms that disassociate them from the B2C influencer. Whichever term is used, B2B influencer marketing provides an ideal way to combat disintegrating brand trust, especially when combined with the ascendancy of digital communities. It’s no wonder that by the end of 2022 the B2B influencer marketing vertical is expected to reach $11.7 billion in revenue, with over 38 percent of B2B firms exploring influencer marketing for lead-generation and more, according to AdAge. Let’s take a look at some of the creative ways that B2B influencer marketing is continuing to utilize digital communities to elevate brands and their audiences. [bctt tweet="“B2B influencer marketing provides an ideal way to combat disintegrating brand trust, especially when combined with the ascendancy of digital communities.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

1 — The Ascent of Digital Communities

The professionals who make up the majority of B2B influencers are well aware of the importance of digital communities, as they play a major role in amplifying the voice of industry experts, and provide valuable feedback from engaged audiences that are often hyper-focused on particular topics. Digital communities, whether in the form of major social media platform public or private groups, or on brand or publisher websites, are one of the most important communication channels for B2B influencers — and for today's brand audiences and potential customers. 72 percent of U.S. consumers said they believe that publishers should host digital communities, with 91 percent having said that they actively read comments on digital communities that are hosted on publisher websites — while 84 percent said publisher communities were healthier than those hosted on dedicated social media platforms, according to OpenWeb’s 2022 Online Communities Report. Subject matter experts have often spent years or even decades actively participating in online communities or various types, and have built a history of trust among those communities. These B2B influencers know when and where it’s appropriate to share relevant content from the brands they work with — and when not to.

2 — B2B Influencer Marketing Thrives With Digital Communities

B2B influencer marketing is a many-faceted digital diamond that when done well shines brightly, however brands need to be wary of treating it like its vastly different B2C counterpart. Becoming a part of a B2B influencer’s community is a great way to find potential subject matter experts to work with, but what makes a good B2B influencer? Ursula Ringham, head of global influencer marketing at SAP, sees digital communities as an important opportunity for finding potential influencer partners.

“How do I know if an influencer is authentic, trustworthy, and credible to partner with for a campaign? First, I figure out who they are as a person. And that is when I become a detective. I like to read, watch, and listen to their content. Is their content engaging, innovative, and does it tell a story in an interesting way? What separates them from other influencers? Then I become part of their community. I discover who follows them and how those people engage. Does the influencer create an experience I want to continue to come back and learn from? Finally, I like to take them out for coffee or set up a Zoom call. You can learn so much from this one-on-one interaction.”

Ringham has shared additional insight as one of the dozens of top influencer marketing practitioners from major B2B brands who have contributed to our comprehensive free 59-page 2022 B2B Influencer Marketing Research Report, rich with survey insights, case studies from B2B brands, 2023 predictions from top B2B marketing experts, and more. [bctt tweet="“To understand if an influencer is authentic, trustworthy and credible to partner with, first figure out who they are as a person. Read, listen and watch their content. What separates them?” — UrsulaRingham @UrsulaRingham of @SAP" username="toprank"] The report also revealed that community building is a key part of a successful B2B influencer marketing strategy. An active digital community can help influencers network with each other, get to know the brand and customers better, and co-create great content, and the report found that a fifth of respondents said they maintain such a community, but an additional 50 percent said they would like to do so. For those who maintain a community, most (76 percent) said they provide a platform for connecting with the brand, and include influencers in communications between the brand and community. Only 41 percent, however, said they provide a platform or social outlet for influencers to connect with each other, representing a substantial opportunity for improvement; helping influencers network is a major way for brands to offer value.

3 — Rising Above Record Distrust With The Power Of Influence

via GIPHY In 2023 the ascent of digital communities — whether private or public — combined with the power of B2B influencer marketing, will increasingly help brands overcome and rise above the record distrust audiences have for marketing. We hope that this look at the rising reliance on trusted digital communities and how their use in B2B influencer marketing is increasingly helping brands will help you in your own efforts in 2023. More than ever, creating award-winning B2B marketing that elevates, gives voice to talent, and humanizes with authenticity takes considerable time and effort, which is why more brands are choosing to work with a top digital marketing agency such as TopRank Marketing. Contact us today and find out how we can help, as we’ve done for over 20 years for businesses ranging from LinkedIn, Dell and 3M to Adobe, Oracle, monday.com and many others.  

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