Editorial
The Gist:
- Prioritize customer privacy. Using an AI system open to the general public comes with risks, so it’s crucial to protect consumer data.
- Be responsible. Ensure the AI tool tour marketing team invests in aligns with the ethics of your brand.
- Use AI as an aid, not a solution. ChatGPT can certainly help create personalized marketing strategies, but it works best with a human mind to guide it.
ChatGPT is transforming not only the workplace, but the world. Since its launch late last year, leaders in almost every sector of the workplace have been utilizing this tool and others to manage their organization.
According to McKinsey, "The rise of AI, and particularly gen AI, has potential for impact in three areas of marketing and sales: customer experience (CX), growth, and productivity."
With ChatGPT’s wide range of functions, marketers are now turning to this tool to personalize their marketing strategies. But does generative AI help or hinder this process?
Risks of Generative AI: Keeping Customers Safe
Maureen Jann, marketing leader and senior content manager for Twilio, asserts the importance of considering two perspectives when implementing AI: security and accuracy. If a customer trusts you enough to access and store their data, it’s important to prioritize protecting it. The system or data platform you're using to glean customer insights must include data protection measures that adhere and go beyond local regulations.
“While AI-specific regulations range from incredibly strict to largely nonexistent all over the world, it's up to the organization to use the tools to make decisions that will benefit their customers and protect their relationship with them.” Jann said. “From an accuracy standpoint, anyone who has been face to face with artificial intelligence tools knows that they are deeply imperfect. They create a functional working first draft for most things but need to be checked and balanced with other measures.”
She believes AI spot-testing programs are critical to ensure three things:
- You’re using an accurate model
- Your consumers have a positive brand interaction
- You're not jeopardizing your brand in the process
Making your customers feel safe not only builds loyalty but improves the image of your organization, which are two essential elements for success, according to Jann.
Erika Heald, content marketing specialist and consultant, also warns about storing data using generative AI. When using a free and public AI tool like ChatGPT, marketers can’t forget about the user agreement.
“In many cases,” Heald said, “the tool has the right to anything you put into it, and can use it to train the model — and even inform the next response it serves up to someone else. Furthermore, if you are using generative AI to create new content, you can't copyright it.”
With all this in mind, Heald notes that talking with your company's legal team is a good safety measure.
Related Article: The Potential and Limitations of ChatGPT in Marketing
Marketing Personalization Through AI: Refine, Don't Create
When it comes to personalized marketing, it’s best to consider AI as a tool to refine what you create rather than the foundation for a marketing campaign. Using tools like ChatGPT to aid in your strategy (as opposed to using it to craft your strategy entirely) leads to an human-centric design bolstered by the power of artificial intelligence, according to Heald.
And Jann agrees. She warns against using ChatGPT for personalized marketing unless you and your marketing team have read the fine print — which also ensures the AI tool aligns with what you've promised your customers. No matter what the tool is used for, you should invest in AI that upholds the privacy standards of your organization. As Jann said: “Mitigating risk and managing your customer's experience is key to long-term customer lifetime value.”
Related Article: Where Are Marketers on the Generative AI Adoption Curve?
Unlocking Personalized Marketing: Leveraging Advanced AI for Tailored Customer Experiences
According to Heald, marketers have been talking about and striving towards: 1-to-1 marketing for decades. That being said, the majority of what’s being delivered has been crafted based on audience segmentation data trends. Although this is helpful, it’s usually not personally tailored to the customer.
As Jann notes, previous AI models are largely unscalable when it comes to personalization. Most marketing tools from the past 10 years claimed to have some kind of artificial intelligence or machine learning component, but investing in technology that helps customize and automate the personalization opportunities based on customer interactions is when marketers can truly see the value of AI.
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“In order to accomplish the idea that each customer gets their own store or brand experience, you first need to truly understand what is important to them and use a scalpel to carve out what really matters to them.” Jann said. “Blanket, one-for-all artificial intelligence-fueled personalization isn't going to cut it. Knowing what your prospect values and delivering that is going to be far more scalable across all sizes of companies.”
With the evolution of ChatGPT, markers can work on an individual level, reflecting everything they know about each customer for a transformational future. It also enhances efficiency, according to Jann.
The benefits of generative AI largely mollify the everyday drudgery of marketing content. Marketers can more efficiently (and quickly) make ad copies, subject lines, promotional emails or craft landing page copy, Jann added. The smart technology of tools like ChatGPT can parse expansive data in a way that’s streamlined — and do far more adequately than the human brain. Although we know what other people want, AI can help compartmentalize this data and use it to craft personalized ads and campaigns to the desired consumer.
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