Here’s how to embrace the future of marketing with AI and ramp up your skills to evolve alongside it
Artificial intelligence has been a trending topic for quite some time, and its use is on the rise in every industry. According to a report by Salesforce, 51% of marketing leaders state that they currently use AI in some way, with 27% planning to start using it in the next two years. As AI continues to grow, it will progressively impact how our society functions and transform the way we work.
As with any transformative technology, AI has marketing professionals on their toes, leaving them to wonder about the fate of their jobs. Should you anticipate a massive disruption by AI threatening the security of your job?
Marketers, have no fear: AI isn’t going to replace you or any of your colleagues just yet. AI is incredibly advanced, but it is not sophisticated enough to master human IQ and emotional intelligence.
We haven’t yet experienced the full potential of AI, but as it comes to fruition, it will need the support of humans, and it will compel marketers to build their expertise. While AI may replace a few routine marketing functions, it will create new roles and transform the role of the modern marketing expert.
Here’s how to embrace the future of marketing with AI and ramp up your skills to evolve alongside it.
Embrace AI with Open Arms
To develop skills suited to support AI, you must first understand its current and potential uses.
AI can automate repetitive tasks and sort massive amounts of data. From analyzing which type of content resonates with a specific persona to curating the content all on its own, AI is incredibly proficient at providing deep insights into consumers and optimizing workflows. By automating redundant work, AI gives humans the opportunity to craft sophisticated strategies and prioritize meaningful tasks.
The best way to survive the AI shift is to embrace its strengths and how it complements your capabilities. By understanding the limitations and possibilities of AI, you can understand how it will change and enhance your work.
Become Fluent in Analytics and Data
AI makes marketing tasks more efficient by enhancing data-driven decision-making. Marketers are now better able to identify their target consumer and understand the consumer’s needs.
AI is well-equipped to manage and sort data. It identifies insights, predicts patterns and highlights valuable relationships that humans may miss.
However, the data AI delivers needs to be translated by a human. Marketers must understand analytics and interpret the outputs to drive meaningful connections and actions, which will allow them to understand consumer behavior and motivations.
You Can’t Put a Price on Emotional Intelligence
The continuous integration of AI into the customer-centric world changes how consumers interact with and purchase from brands. This type of technology drives customer demands and expectations higher, forcing marketers to deliver better experiences.
AI provides social insights that allow you to deliver messages across various channels based on customer behavior. However, it falls short of the emotional capacity needed to genuinely connect with consumers. AI lacks the competence to understand context along the customer journey. Different factors, such as location and culture, significantly impact customer journey and experience, most of which are only possible for humans to intimately understand.
Human empathy and emotional intelligence (EQ) allow us to understand the consumer and tailor content for a highly personalized journey and experience better than AI can.
A combination of sophisticated analytical skills and EQ empowers marketers to use AI to target their core customers in ways that weren’t possible just a few years ago.
Unparalleled Creativity Cannot Be Simulated
Consumers expect more than just a great product or service from a brand. They want to connect with the company, and they expect an incredible, seamless buying experience. This experience creates loyalty and repeat business.
Nothing can connect to the emotions and feelings of a human better than another human. AI allows humans to focus on creative work and other tasks machines can’t do. If you have a unique, creative mindset to complement sharp technical skills, your competence is unmatched by any transformative technology.
Lifelong Learning Is a Must to Survive
AI will decrease the amount of effort and time marketers spend on day-to-day tasks, but it can never replace the human touch successful marketing requires. Marketers who continuously learn, expand their skills and evolve alongside technology will always be able to survive.
AI will always need human input to maximize its value. Marketers must learn many new technical skills to get ahead. Doing so will help you speak the language of AI and deliver more value as a marketer. The best marketers use innovative technologies to enhance their skills and results for their employers.
Alice Oh is a digital marketing specialist at MarketPro, Inc. She writes about transformation and trends that occur in digital marketing. She is intrigued by the rapid integration of technology in marketing and is always eager to learn about the latest developments.