Leveraging AI and Large Language Models for Marketing Success

In the ever-evolving landscape of marketing, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a game-changer, offering efficiency for marketers in any segment, including those working in building materials manufacturing.

AI has the potential to transform the way we brainstorm, strategize, and work day to day as marketing professionals. Corporate America is still in the early phases of determining how much AI can and should impact their business and how to best utilize the technology while balancing its efficiency with an evolving code of ethics.

What are the advantages? The limitations? Where are we in the development cycle of this paradigm shift? As a building materials manufacturer, it is important for you to ask these questions about AI and to know how they could impact your brand.

Balancing the Human with the Artificial

As a marketer, you are an asset to your organization because of the creativity, thoughtfulness, and the human touch you deliver through your work. However, AI has presented a new way for marketers to operate, one that offers more efficiency and bolstered productivity.

While AI can support marketers with day-to-day activities such as content ideation, writing, or even with Photoshop, it can also help in strategy formulation and planning through segmentation, targeting, and positioning (STP). This is according to research in “Artificial intelligence in marketing: Systematic review and future research direction.” The research underscores the multifaceted role that AI can play in refining the very foundation of marketing campaigns in collaboration with organically gathered intelligence.

When combined with the necessary human efforts through brainstorming and input sessions, AI can be a big help when preparing marketing campaigns. Of course, human involvement in strategy and discovery are wholly necessary, but marketers are now enlisting assistance from AI to gather key insights, supplementing their efforts to achieve the best possible results.

Take audience segmentation, for example. In a piece published by Addlly AI on LinkedIn, leveraging AI-powered tools and analytics can streamline gathering insights and targeting the right people. AI solutions can help marketers analyze customer data, more accurately segment data, and clean up duplicate or outdated data. The article also states that predictive analytics powered by AI can help marketing teams anticipate customer needs and preferences, enabling them to tailor specific strategies for unique audience sets when combined with intelligence gathered organically by marketing teams.

Clearly, AI can help expedite time-consuming tasks, but marketers are finding it more and more beneficial to balance AI findings with human-based input to gather deeper insights and tell a better marketing story. As with any interaction with AI, finding an equilibrium is key, striking the right balance of AI assistance and human involvement.

Furthermore, what about work that requires a greater degree of ingenuity, creativity, and individual human touch? For these types of tasks, it is important to remember the moral and ethical considerations of using AI tools.

Copywriting for an advertisement or the development of a white paper that features two of your organization’s most knowledgeable staff members are just two examples of the many marketing efforts that require a large degree of human input. That’s not to say that AI tools cannot be used during the brainstorming phases of the work, or for getting over a case of writer’s block, but a marketer’s final content should never be directly pulled from AI-generated content. Instead, consider AI tools as resources, research tools, or platforms to help spur ideas during content creation. Think about how to blend assistance from the artificial with real, true personal touch.

Understanding Large Language Models

Large language models, such as ChatGPT developed by OpenAI, are AI solutions trained on vast datasets (including the internet, books, and code) that can lend a helping hand to marketers for a variety of tasks. They can generate human-like texts, making them versatile tools.

How can large language models be used by marketers?

• Content ideation and generation
• Script writing
• Crafting personalized marketing messages tailored to specific audiences, improving customer experiences
• Answering questions quickly and easily, removing a great deal of tedious research hours
• Hashtag research, enhancing visibility among target audiences on social platforms
• SEO keyword research
• Subject line and headline development, helping to create attention-grabbing content for email marketing and boosting metrics such as open and click-through rates
• Brand messaging support to develop clear and concise messaging, ensuring consistency across various marketing channels
• Competitor research by asking questions about competitor products, services, marketing campaigns, and customer reviews
• Brainstorming blog post topics

Marketers worldwide can use ChatGPT and other large language models to generate content, advertising, and overall marketing ideas by providing prompts related to their industry or products. This not only sparks creativity but also ensures that the content aligns with the specific needs and interests of diverse audiences. This can be key for building materials manufacturers who need to appeal to different audiences such as contractors, homeowners, architects, and more.

The ability of large language models to understand and replicate human-like language enables marketers to accelerate content creation processes, research, and strategy development more effectively.

Limitations and Ethical Considerations

While AI, including tools such as ChatGPT, offers a host of benefits, it is essential to be aware of its limitations. Businesses should be transparent about using AI-generated content, considering privacy concerns and avoiding potential misuse.

In terms of limitations, AI is not human and requires specific guidance. Large language models tend to need a lot of human input to provide the most accurate answers, particularly if the user is requesting a rather complex or long-form response. AI tools can also be repetitive and inaccurate at times, so it is wise to conduct additional research and fact check the answers provided.

To get the most out of these tools, use plugins such as WebChatGPT, which bypasses any time limitations on the data that ChatGPT pulls from, enabling it to access the most current sources on the internet. In addition, ChatGPT and other large language models can provide the sources from which it is deriving its answer. This allows the user to reference the source material more easily for fact checking, permitting them to take a deeper dive.

When using large language model tools, keep in mind that there is always a potential for bias. These models pull from sources on the internet, so if it is referencing a news source that leans in a particular direction (politically for example), this could be reflected in the large language model’s answer.

Finally, there can be a lack of common sense in AI-generated content because it does not possess an understanding of the world that comes with real experiences.

In an example provided by Murf AI, “If someone were to ask ChatGPT if it's possible to swim in the sky, it might provide a response that technically answers the question but doesn't recognize the absurdity of the request. Similarly, if someone were to ask ChatGPT for medical advice on treating a broken bone, it might provide wrong answers or even harmful instructions if it hasn't been trained to always answer correctly on medical issues.”

This highlights the importance of a comprehensive review and editing from a real person.

Future-Forged

While widely used and adopted by consumers, B2C, and B2B organizations already, AI technology is still in its infancy, and there is plenty of opportunity for growth.

As AI continues to evolve, expect improvements in accuracy, contextual understanding, and the ability to generate more impactful and accurate content. Ethical considerations and bias mitigation will likely be at the forefront of development in AI, ensuring responsible and unbiased interactions with users.

In essence, it is a work in progress, and marketers who use AI solutions should keep this in mind.

All things considered, embracing AI can help inform marketing strategies and remove a great deal of legwork for marketers when it comes to research, content development, and much more. By leveraging its capabilities, building materials manufacturers can streamline many marketing efforts, enhance customer engagement, and stay ahead of competition.

On the other hand, AI gaining ground in many sectors of the corporate world is leaving a significant portion of the workforce with some level of concern. In fact, according to the American Psychological Association, 46% of workers are worried about AI making some or all of their job duties obsolete. However, it is important to think of AI as more of an evolution, not a replacement. In fact, the forecast is that there are many jobs that AI will actually create for humans, such as AI ethicist, AI data privacy manager, and AI augmentation specialist, just to name a few.

For those hesitant to adopt AI, think of it this way: AI won’t replace your jobs, but humans using AI probably will.

^*Certain information and third-party sources included in this article were sourced via ChatGPT.