In this truly digital era, where technology shapes how SMBs and larger corporations operate and interact with their audiences, Artificial Intelligence or AI has been a groundbreaking advancement. From healthcare to finance and from small online-only stores to big-ticket gourmet outlets, AI’s influence is pervasive. A lot of digital marketing has been impacted greatly. AI’s abilities -analyzing vast amounts of data, predicting trends, and automating tasks – have disrupted digital marketing itself.
When used properly, your digital marketing strategy can bring about positive change and revenue growth-cum-financial baseline growth like never before.
The Current Impact of AI on Digital Marketing- a checklist
Now that AI has crossed over from the theoretical realm and has been integrated across many aspects of businesses on a regular basis, its strides are already on display.
Cut to mid-2024, and these are some facets where AI’s impact on digital marketing trends is clear.
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Greater Personalization with More Customer Insights
> AI algorithms tracks & analyze user data including their behavior and preferences to deliver highly personalized (almost tailor-made) content and product recommendations. Individual customers are getting what they want a lot easily, leading to higher engagement and conversion rates.
Other data collected include demographics, behavior, and purchasing patterns. These insights allow for superior segmentation, which inevitably leads to a memorable shopping experience.
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Automation and Efficiency
> Automated customer service handling by AI-powered bots (always on with real-time solutions and support) has been a cornerstone of digital marketing for SMBs and has freed up more time for you to handle more complicated business affairs.
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Content Creation and Curation Made Easier
> AI tools can generate all types of content; from product descriptions, social media posts, news articles & press releases, you name it. Curation has improved vastly- users can now receive more relevant information. The result is enhanced overall experience.
> Email Marketing: Email marketing campaigns are extremely underrated but have always been an overlooked aspect of any digital marketing strategy. But it’s tough to launch an email marketing campaign without analyzing metrics like open rates & click-through rates. AI can now predict the best times to send marketing emails, besides crafting hyper- personalized subject lines.
What’s more, it helps you automate your follow-up mails and assists you with A/B testing, all based on user interactions.
Data Analysis and Predictive Analytics are capably handled by AI. Looking back on historical data to predict future trends is one way it serves smaller businesses.
AI’s unparalleled ability to process and interpret a great amount of data in a short span allows marketers to better understand what makes their customers tick. These datasets also help in improving advertising & targeting certain demographics.
From buying ad-space to placing them where it will attract more eyeballs, AI can be trained to fit digital marketing for SMBs. Ad-spend wastage is also lowered. This reduces ad expenditure wastage and increases the likelihood of reaching potential customers.
4 Untapped Frontiers Waiting for an AI Tsunami
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The Birth & Rise of AI-Driven Content Creation
A lot of specialized content creators around the world have already faced the brunt of AI-driven content taking away their jobs. This is a matter of concern but not to the companies offering such tools.
Various types of content, including articles, images, and videos, are being produced with Open AI’s GPT-3 and its successors. Some can largely mimic human writing, making it easier for marketers to generate content at scale. While AI-generated content has also forced search engines like Google to update their algorithms to ensure that the domains they rank provide both content quality and authenticity (Google’s March 2024 core algorithm update penalized sites that flooded the Internet with AI-generated content that were devoid of proper authorship and had zero expertise), it also means that many companies with limited budgets for digital marketing strategies are increasingly relying on such tools.
No intelligence can ever substitute what a skilled human writer can produce. For them, AI remains a valuable crutch to create content outlines, summarize hundreds of research papers & other resources, besides generating executive summaries.
The list of ways AI writing tools can be used is endless. Expect the next generation of such tools to be a kind of assistant to expert writers, graphic designers, and others in the creative domains.
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Zero-Click Searches
Few experts talk about how zero-click searches have taken off. AI-powered search engines have changed the nature of Search Engine Results Pages (or SERPs). More searches are becoming “zero-click,” where users find answers directly on the search results page & don’t have to click on any URL!
This has impacted digital marketing for SMBs since their organic traffic has taken a hit. In mid-2022, SEMrush found that 25.6% of all searches resulted in zero clicks- almost a quarter of all searches.
That percentage has since risen. More users are now either entering new keywords or engaging with Google’s latest internal features like news tabs, image searches, and so on.
As a savvy business-owner, you need to adapt your strategies and follow Google’s recommendations like brand-building and E-E-A-T guidelines to land in featured snippets, for one.
The key takeaway is to improve your content quality and offer more value to the reader.
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Personalization Beyond Belief
Unprecedented levels of personalization are made possible using AI-powered tools, where even the tiniest insight about every customer is analyzed and kept for future reference.
Highly individualized marketing journeys based on predictive analytics and user behavior have already overtaken traditional segmentation. This is most evident in the global E-commerce industry, where AI has brought together what’s called an ‘unified marketing experience.’
Hyper-bespoke emails, social ads, on-site promotions, messages, shopping cart recommendations, and offers are curated using continuous data analysis. The endgame is a shift to true one-to-one personalization for that elusive constant customer engagement and satisfaction.
Like your favorite physical store with people you know manning the counters, only online. And available 24/7.
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A New Frontier in Voice Search Optimization
The reason why voice assistants like Google Assistant (many also opt for the Gemini version), Siri, and Amazon’s Alexa are becoming a part of our daily lives is the AI working behind the scenes.
Optimizing for voice search is more essential than ever. The number of voice assistant users might touch the 157 million mark by 2026, up from 2022’s 142 million. Such sustained growth means new opportunities for digital marketers, who can tweak their strategies for localized marketing (‘near me’ commands) and a range of shopping prompts.
B2B companies are also adopting voice search capabilities now that these assistants can understand what is being said. Your upgraded digital marketing strategy for 2024 and beyond must take VSO very seriously.
4 Major Challenges That AI in Digital Marketing Faces
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Data Privacy Issues
Since AI relies extensively on data to train its LLMs – which in turn powers your searches and content creation – it is natural to have qualms about whether your data is private and safe. Marketers must ensure compliance with the latest extant data protection regulations and implement robust security measures to protect all customer information. Security issues have already led to many people withdrawing from sharing their personal details with third-party companies.
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Accuracy Levels
AI does data analysis and trends predictions superbly, but it lacks common sense. If you ask ChatGPT 4 why your flight was either not booked or was delayed, it will be unable to provide a reason. Be vigilant and don’t over-rely on these tools. Monitor and validate AI outputs consistently so that the results align with real-world situations.
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Ethical Considerations
One of the biggest digital marketing trends is the worrisome behavior of many AI assistants. Complaints of bias in algorithms and the potential manipulation of customer behavior have been flagged across the US and worldwide. Developers are working to establish guardrails & ethical guidelines and practices to usher in both transparency and fairness.
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Keeping Up with AI Advancements
With AI being dangled everywhere and given the pace at which the technology is evolving, merely staying updated can be a challenge. Continuous learning and adaptation by marketers to leverage AI is critical.
Don’t sweat it too much, though. To understand new AI tools & integrate them into existing systems, opt for help in the form of remote staffing solutions.
Remote Resource’s Role
Some of these trends might seem challenging to implement, and many SMBs cannot afford to experiment with multiple completely different DM strategies simultaneously. What you need are experts who understand these emerging technologies.
Engage with our digital marketing wizards at a fraction of what you would have to pay in the United States. Let them work as your virtual assistants, using new tools to enhance personalization, efficiency, and data-driven decision-making.
Because embracing AI is not just about staying ahead of your rivals; it also means providing customized & meaningful solutions to your clients. Remote Resource will do exactly that on your behalf.
