We’d all like to make money instantly.
The reality is ROI takes time. With content marketing, the challenge is not just creating great content – it's ensuring that it resonates and drives action. And ultimate gets your customer to convert. The process requires strategy, good SEO, seasoned content creators – and a little luck.
Our marketing agency can’t help with the luck, but we can drive content marketing ROI in other ways. High-quality and consistent output are important – and AI can help amplify both of these aspects. Here’s how.
Boosting creativity with AI
Every creative knows what it’s like to hit a wall.
The creative impulse can seem to come at a whim – and sometimes it just does not come. If you’re on a deadline, panic can begin to set in.
AI is the perfect tool to overcome those moments of creative block. It’s great at rapid idea generation and can provide fresh perspectives you haven’t yet considered. Tools like Compass – already trained on a wealth of brand data – can spitball fast, whilst retaining the nuances of your brand’s voice and messaging.
“Tools like Compass can spitball fast, whilst retaining the nuances of your brand’s voice.”
AI tools are already in use by 83% of creatives.
Considering AI tools have only been commercially available for a couple of years, this huge adoption rate is a testament to their effectiveness. Creatives wouldn’t bother with a tool that downgraded their content – so there is something about AI that elevates the creative process rather than diminishes it.
AI doesn’t replace human ingenuity. It can’t do that. But it can amplify it. AI tools can help creatives brainstorm, spitball, draft, and segway – and smooth out any wrinkles. It’s a creative lubricant, giving free flow to a stream of ideas.
“AI is a creative lubricant, giving free flow to a stream of ideas.”
Faster writing with AI
A lot of content marketing ROI depends on speed. This is both the speed of production – as well as quick reaction to trends and hot topics.
Social media (in particular) moves at lightning speed. Brands that can react quickly, jump on trends, and deliver a consistent stream of content (of high quality) are likely to win their customers over. And capture attention – the modus operandi of social media.
Fast can mean relevant on social channels. But speed isn’t enough. Your content needs to resonate with your audience, maintain high quality, sit within brand guidelines and – ideally push your customers to convert.
Not much then.
AI helps content creators perform this balancing act. Using AI tools, 20% of employees save 1-2 hours daily. Creatives can better walk the tightrope between quality and speed.
“AI helps content creators perform a balancing act. Using AI tools, creatives can better walk the tightrope between quality and speed.”
Audience insights captured by AI
A 2022 survey in the US found that 57% of B2B marketers were successfully using AI-driven chatbots to better understand their audience.
Data on customer preferences, FAQs, and pain points could be captured more effectively using chatbots. And the top automated tasks performed by chatbots are tasks like collecting information and qualifying leads.
In short – AI-driven chatbots are a dual powerhouse, providing support and pulling insights from each conversation. A human advisor isn’t easily able to capture data and provide advice simultaneously.
Similar data can be captured in areas like recruitment. Radar, an AI-powered talent intelligence platform, goes beyond finding talent. The tool pulls in data – meaning that it can preemptively source the right candidates. This gives the platform a predictive capacity, enabling recruiters to make faster, smarter decisions.
“AI-driven chatbots are a dual powerhouse, providing support and pulling insights from each conversation.”
Enhancing SEO with AI
SEO has always been difficult due to the complex nature of search algorithms. The goalposts (ranking factors) change a lot – which leaves marketers struggling to keep up. This does mean (of course) that quality wins out, since it’s difficult to trick the system and bypass an engine’s capacity to evaluate content’s authenticity, relevance, and usefulness.
Google relies on web crawlers, that “read” and index web pages. The crawlers rely on a lot of criteria, much of which Google obscures. Keywords play a part, as does the content itself, technical audits, link building etc. For marketers, there’s a fair amount to implement, track, and adjust – especially when algorithms constantly change.
AI is well-positioned to step in and streamline many SEO processes, including:
- Suggesting long-tail keywords and topics, allowing businesses to target more specific audiences & improve search rankings
- Content optimisation, identifying gaps in readability and content structure
- Supporting technical SEO audits, identifying standout issues on web pages
“AI saves the marketing team so much time by flagging issues we might have missed and suggesting improvements.”
Scaling your content strategy
Scaling quality content creation is difficult – but made possible with AI.
AI allows for the automation of time-consuming tasks, such as topic ideation, fleshing out the content of an asset, and SEO optimisation, which makes it easier to produce a high volume of content.
Still, human ingenuity is required for creativity. This can’t yet be expedited (much) by AI tools, but the technology can be used to enhance other areas of the content process. AI can speed up various aspects, such as content curation, personalisation, and distribution.
What AI is particularly good at is generating brand-consistent content at scale. This is content that sits within a set of brand guidelines – something that can be difficult to achieve without individual domain knowledge. AI tools like Compass, once trained in a company's brand guidelines and TOV, are able to quickly produce (or check) content for a desired style and messaging.
"AI tools like Compass are able to quickly produce (or check) content for a desired style and messaging."
Let AI be your competitive advantage
AI doesn’t replace human creativity. But it does deliver a clear ROI in remits of content marketing. It’s able to automate time-consuming tasks, deliver rapid (and fresh) content ideation, optimise on SEO, deliver audience analysis, and help marketers focus on strategy and creativity.
A tool that delivers an ROI in different remits is valuable to any content creator. It’s most valuable in the sense that it can scale content production, whilst preserving a creative spark. It can’t be used on its own, but AI can (and should) be used as an ally to human ingenuity and creativity.
We boost your content marketing ROI with AI
Guess what? We're experts in both B2B marketing and AI. Our team knows how to combine human creativity and true AI to deliver results that have a substantial impact on your bottom line. To navigate the AI-driven world, you need a partner like us.