Artificial Intelligence (AI) is past the point of being a buzzword. It’s a revolutionary technology reshaping industries, challenging rules, and redefining boundaries. As a business owner, staying ahead of the game and understanding these changes is critical to running a successful business. At Higher Images, we’ve always joked that the internet is the Wild West, and more often, it comes down to who has the quicker draw. That’s why we’ve taken the time to research AI and what it means for your business and your marketing strategies.
A Brief Overview of AI – What is it? How Long Has it been around?
To better understand AI, let’s take a look at a brief history:
- 1940s: Talks and concepts of machine intelligence start, and testing begins
- 1950s: The term artificial intelligence first came into play by computer scientist John McCarthy.
- 1960s-80s: Computer scientists worked towards creating artificial intelligence and started hitting milestones, such as creating the first autonomous car.
- 1990 – Present: Speech recognition and similar software are introduced, paving the way for programs we use today, such as ChatGPT, one of the most commonly used AI technologies.
Although many companies have hopped on the AI bandwagon, as you can see, it’s something that has been in the marketing world for years, and a seasoned marketer already has at least some experience working with different types of AI. Google, for instance, has long harnessed AI to enhance its search engine and provide you with the search results many people now use daily. Every Google Ad expert has competed using Google’s AI technology to determine the Ad auctions for placements, keyword terms, and more.
The difference between then and now is that the technology is available for just about anyone to use, catching the interest of the public eye, creating trends, and sparking debate. Regardless of the debates, there are benefits that can give businesses an edge against their competitors. The big question is – can you effectively use it for your marketing?
How Can I Use AI for Effective Marketing?
The best way to effectively utilize AI is to set your expectations and adopt the mindset that AI is a tool. Would you hire a calculator to do your taxes? Probably not. No matter how intelligent the software is, you want to entrust a specialist to make sure that you have accurate information and are utilizing the technology the correct way. For this reason, you’ll need an experienced marketer to understand how to use the tool to its full extent.
A good specialist can use AI to improve your marketing by:
- Predictive Analytics: To determine if our strategy is headed in the right direction, we can run predictive analytics to compare which strategy will do best with your ideal audience.
- Competitive Research: 2020 created a website gold rush of businesses striving to get websites to compete online during the lockdown. With this increase in competition comes an increase in research. AI can assist us in GAP analysis – what the heck is that? A fancy term for all the work we do to compare your business amongst your competitors and contrast the differences (such as which keywords we are going after, geo-target areas, ad budgets, and so on).
- Customer Insights: AI can search the vast databases we give it to provide us better insights into what your customer demographics look like.
These are some ways we can utilize AI to give you a competitive advantage.
The Benefits of AI Technology for Marketing
Since Google has been implementing learning technology into its search engine, there are more factors to consider when ranking than ever. This remains true for competitors, keywords, content, and other areas of search engine marketing/optimization. When researching manually, a marketing agent could spend hours researching just one keyword or one geo-target area to figure out the best practices.
If you don’t know about all the functionality, you won’t be able to use it effectively. Also, AI is not 100% accurate and can sound convincing. By trusting AI without being an expert, you end up with inaccurate information.
How Will AI Impact My Industry?
AI is a broad term and has been around in some industries longer than others. For this reason, there’s not a blanket statement that can be made on how it will impact one specific industry. The best way to learn and understand its impact is to work with someone who is experienced in the subject and understands your business.
For example, an experienced marketing agent can help you understand what the different technologies are and how you can use them to automate your processes. They will ask you questions such as:
- What does your process look like now? Do you have a follow-up plan, tracking, and software to track sales and leads?
- What are your pain points or areas of improvement? After reviewing your process – review the pain points and areas where you want to improve.
- What’s your action plan for growth? What does your business look like a year from now, five years, and the future? How big do you want to grow, and what do you want to do with your business?
Once we have a better understanding of your business and goals, we can formulate a strategy to see what areas AI, or even other technologies, can help your business flourish.
How Do I Get Started with AI Marketing?
Don’t pack up all your bags and get caught in the AI gold rush. Getting started can be as simple as picking up the phone and dialing a number, specifically 412-203-1996. Our team at Higher Images can assist you in creating a marketing strategy that utilizes not only AI but also the latest technologies in your industry.
What sets us apart is that we view these technologies as tools and rely on real people to get the job done right. Our team consists of experts in the industry, such as graphic designers, virtual marketing officers, content writers, and more. Our team will help you to create a customized plan tailored to meet your needs and offer support for your business.
Gina has been working full-time for Higher Images since 2013. As VP of Technology and Virtual Marketing Officer, she provides support for our technology and is an expert at managing digital marketing campaigns.
Latest posts by Gina Thornberg
(see all)
View Our Work
