AI In Content Marketing - What You Need to Know

Content marketing is the backbone of any successful inbound marketing strategy. Every valuable piece of content you create, from blog posts to premium content offers, helps acquire new customers and nurture current ones.

However, we all know that content marketing is time-consuming. Whether you’re planning campaigns, writing blogs, or analyzing the results of your efforts, tools to help you get the job done are necessary.

For many content marketers, AI can help increase content marketing efficiency and quality.

In this blog post, we’ll dive into the benefits, challenges, and tools at your disposal to become a wizard at using AI for content marketing. But first, let’s talk about what AI is and how it works.

What is AI? 

Artificial intelligence, or AI, is the ability of a computer or machine to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence. This includes learning, problem-solving, perception, decision-making, and even natural language processing.

There are a few different ways to build AI, but the most common is through machine learning, where a computer is fed vast amounts of data and then uses algorithms to identify patterns and make predictions. 

Another approach is rule-based systems, where a computer is given a set of rules to follow to make decisions.

AI is used in everything from image recognition and natural language processing to autonomous vehicles and predictive analytics. It can potentially revolutionize how we live and work, but it also raises ethical and social concerns around things like job displacement, data handling, privacy, and bias.

Overall, AI is a complex and rapidly-evolving field that is already impacting society. As researchers and developers continue to push the boundaries of what is possible, it will be important to consider the ethical implications of these advancements and ensure that AI is used responsibly.

What Are the Benefits of Leveraging AI in Content Marketing?

Efficiency

AI can benefit content marketers by improving efficiency and reducing the time and resources required to create and distribute content. 

• AI-powered tools can generate content based on specific keywords, topics, and audience preferences.
• Instead of spending several hours writing and researching for a blog post, supervised AI tools can be used to write the meat of your article.
• These tools can also optimize content for search engines and social media platforms, reducing the time and resources required for manual optimization. 

Be careful, though—AI is not a substitute for a good writer. Any product produced by AI tools should be actively edited and scanned for errors. You’ll also need to interject your voice and tone into articles written by an AI tool. 

Defeating writer's block

Writer's block is a common challenge that content creators face, and it can be frustrating and time-consuming. However, AI-powered tools can help overcome writer's block by providing inspiration and ideas for content. 

• Content optimization tools can analyze existing content and identify gaps or areas for improvement, providing suggestions for new topics or angles.
• Meanwhile, natural language generation (NLG) tools can generate written content based on specific keywords or topics, providing a starting point for further development.

Topic generation

Generating fresh and engaging topics for content creation can be challenging—especially in today's fast-paced digital world, where content is constantly being produced. Fortunately, AI technology has made significant strides in recent years and can now help with topic generation in various ways.

One of the primary ways AI can help with topic generation is by analyzing trends and user behavior.

• By analyzing search data and social media activity, AI tools can identify popular topics and trends in real-time.
• This information can help content creators generate relevant and timely content that resonates with their audience.

AI can also help with topic generation by analyzing existing content. Using natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning algorithms, AI-powered content analysis tools can identify themes, topics, and keywords frequently mentioned in existing content. This information can help content creators identify gaps in the market and generate new content ideas that fill those gaps.

Moreover, AI can assist with generating headlines and titles for content. By analyzing the content and understanding the tone and style, AI-powered headline generation tools can create catchy, attention-grabbing headlines that entice readers to click and engage with the content.

Here’s an example of ChatGPT, a natural language generation tool, coming up with blog topics:

This is also a very basic prompt—by getting creative with your prompts, you can get NLG tools to provide some unique and creative topics. Plus, you should always keep in mind that your content needs to be useful to the reader—regardless of the topic.

Enhancing UX via chatbots

AI chatbots provide various services and support to customers across multiple industries. From online retail and healthcare to finance and hospitality, chatbots have proven to be a valuable tool for enhancing the user experience.

One of the primary ways that good AI chatbots improve user experience is by providing instant and personalized support. Unlike human agents, chatbots can simultaneously handle multiple queries and respond to customer inquiries 24/7.

By leveraging natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning algorithms, chatbots can understand user intent and provide relevant responses in real-time—reducing wait times and improving the overall customer experience. However, visitor satisfaction depends heavily on the quality of the chatbot—and the ability of a user to connect to a skilled human being when they need to escalate a query.

• AI chatbots shine in their ability to handle repetitive and mundane tasks, such as answering frequently asked questions, providing product recommendations, and scheduling appointments.
• By automating these processes, chatbots free human agents to focus on more complex and high-value tasks, such as problem-solving and relationship-building.
• This improves efficiency and enables businesses to provide a more personalized,  human touch where it matters most in customer interactions.

Lastly, AI chatbots can collect and analyze customer data to gain insights into user behavior, preferences, and pain points. By leveraging this data, businesses can optimize their products and services, tailor their marketing strategies, and enhance the overall user experience.

Content editing

Content editing is an essential aspect of creating high-quality written material. Whether it's a blog post, a news article, or a research paper, content needs to be error-free, well-organized, and engaging for the reader. However, as writers, we all know that editing can be a pain. 

Fortunately, AI technology has made significant strides in recent years, and it can now help with content editing in various ways.

One of the primary ways AI can help with content editing is by identifying grammar and spelling errors.

• Traditional grammar checkers have existed for years, but AI-powered tools use machine learning algorithms to provide context-specific suggestions. For example, Gmail can analyze the starting structure of an email you’re writing and offer generative suggestions that pay attention to tone and voice.
• AI-powered grammar checkers can also detect errors that traditional tools may miss, such as incorrect word usage, sentence structure, and punctuation.

An example of Gmail providing generative text suggestions based on existing context.

Another way AI can help with content editing is by providing suggestions for improving readability and engagement.

• By analyzing the content's tone, structure, and readability, AI tools can provide insights and recommendations to make the content more engaging and appealing to the reader.
• AI tools can suggest changes to sentence length, paragraph structure, and word choice to make the content easier to understand.

What Are the Challenges of AI Use?

Quality control

While AI-powered tools can generate content ideas and even create content, businesses must ensure that the quality of the content meets their standards. It's essential to have human oversight to ensure that the content is accurate, relevant, and engaging for the target audience.

Data privacy

AI-powered tools require access to large amounts of data to function effectively. However, collecting and using customer data comes with potential privacy risks. Businesses must comply with data privacy laws and regulations and implement appropriate security measures to protect customer data.

Lack of human touch

AI-powered tools can help businesses generate and optimize content at scale, but they often lack the human touch that makes content engaging and relatable. Balancing AI with human input is crucial to ensure that the content resonates with the target audience and creates a genuine connection.

Keeping up with AI advancements

Keeping up with AI advancements in content marketing can be a significant challenge. The field of AI is rapidly evolving, with new tools and techniques being developed at an astonishing pace. This means that content marketers must constantly stay updated to ensure they use the most effective tools for content creation, optimization, and distribution. 

Additionally, the complexity of AI technology can be overwhelming, requiring content marketers to invest significant time and resources in understanding the nuances of different AI tools and algorithms.

Without a thorough understanding of AI technology, marketers may struggle to fully leverage its capabilities, putting their efforts at a disadvantage.

Overall, staying on top of AI advancements requires continuous learning and adaptation, which can be a significant challenge for any professional.

What Tools Can You Use Right Now?

Natural language generation (NLG) tools

One of the most significant advancements in AI is the ability to generate human-like language.

NLG tools use algorithms to create content in a format similar to human writing, which can be used for blog posts, product descriptions, and social media posts.

Using NLG tools can help save time and resources for content marketers while producing high-quality content. However, there are three important things to consider:

1. The output product is only as good as the input prompt given
2. NLG tools do not replace content marketers—the product needs to be reviewed for inconsistencies, false facts, and human voice 
3. AI-generated content may not always be copyrightable.

ChatGPT is a commonly used example of an NLG tool—through a series of prompts, content marketers can write the rough draft of a blog post, come up with content ideas, write outlines for blogs, write product descriptions, social media posts, and more. 

Content optimization Tools

Content optimization tools use AI algorithms to analyze website data and provide insights on improving content performance. These tools can help content marketers identify opportunities for content improvement, such as optimizing headlines, improving readability, or SEO.

Content optimization tools vary greatly in usage—however, two examples are Yoast SEO, which uses AI to analyze website data and provide recommendations for optimizing content for search engines, and Hemingway Editor, a tool that uses AI to analyze content readability and suggest improvements to make it easier to read.

Chatbots and virtual assistants

Chatbots and virtual assistants use AI to automate customer interactions and provide personalized support. These tools can be integrated into a content marketing strategy to engage with users, answer questions, and provide targeted content recommendations.

Drift is a great example of a custom chatbot AI—it allows users to automate customer interactions and provide personalized support to customers. 

Predictive analytics tools

Predictive analytics tools use AI algorithms to analyze historical data and predict future outcomes. These tools can help content marketers forecast content performance, identify high-performing content types and topics, and optimize content distribution strategies.

One of the most common tools used for predictive analytics is Google Analytics. GA4, the latest version of Google Analytics, uses advanced machine learning to analyze website data and predict future outcomes, such as traffic and user behavior.

An example of AI within Google Analytics 4 showing predicted revenue for users coming from Google organic search vs. Google CPC. 

Image and video recognition tools

Image and video recognition tools use AI algorithms to analyze visual content and provide insights on optimizing it. These tools can help content marketers identify trending visual themes, optimize images and videos for social media platforms, and even generate visual content using AI-powered tools.

Many people have used Canva to create captivating images for ads, blogs, and more. In November 2022, Canva launched a text-to-image tool that will produce an image based on a prompt—a prime example of an image rendering tool in practice. 

This social media post idea for a fictional fashion website leveraged Canva’s new technology. Can you tell which images are real people and which were created by AI? It’s a trick question—every image was AI-generated!

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CommonMind AI Disclaimer: This article was written by supervised generative AI and heavily supported by human editing. It has been fact-checked for accuracy by a real person.