If you offer content marketing services, you’re probably well aware that artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the game. As this new technology evolves and AI agencies discover the best ways to implement AI effectively and ethically, new techniques and best practices are emerging.

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Delivering the best AI content marketing services requires a solid understanding of the benefits, challenges, and opportunities that new AI solutions represent. In this blog post, we’ll cover everything you need to know to master AI content marketing, maximize your profits, and future-proof your agency for success in our brave new AI-dominated marketing landscape.

Benefits of AI content marketing

Any new technology as disruptive as AI can justifiably cause some trepidation for professionals working in impacted fields. If your agency offers content services, you might worry that businesses can just directly produce their own AI-generated content, eliminating the need for your agency’s solutions.  

In reality, AI represents a tool to help content marketers improve their workflow, product, and ability to scale. Human expertise and input are still required to create impactful, valuable content. Let’s take a look at the benefits and opportunities for AI digital marketers specializing in content.

More efficient workflows

AI can supercharge your productivity. By using AI tools for research, planning, content creation, and analysis, every stage of the content marketing workflow can be reliably completed faster. This lets you focus on activities that require more creativity and strategic thinking, rather than getting bogged down with repetitive tasks. 

This also makes it easier to scale your output without sacrificing quality, whether you’re an AI startup or an established agency.

For example, check out how you can create a beautiful social campaign from a single AI prompt:

 

Enhanced personalization for better audience targeting

AI tools can collect large amounts of data to glean audience preferences and insights that might otherwise be missed, making them powerful aids in creating more granular personalized content. Since 3 out of 4 consumers say they’re more likely to buy from brands that showcase personalized content, this is a major value-add for content marketers (McKinsey).

Improved data analysis and insights

No matter what kind of digital marketing services you offer, data is essential for understanding the impact of your work, showing it to customers, and refining it to improve outcomes. It can help you gauge how well content or AI social marketing campaigns are performing in terms of helping your clients meet their goals, and you can apply those insights to deliver better results over time.

Higher-quality content marketing

There’s an important caveat here: AI-generated content is rarely of very high quality right out of the box. When using AI to create content, it should either be humanized or used as a starting point. AI solutions can also be used to refine the quality of your existing content by helping to conform better to your desired tone, fixing grammatical errors, and improving SEO optimization. 

Challenges of AI content marketing 

The introduction of AI tools demands that content marketers dramatically change how they work, and since this technology is still quite new, there are some challenges that agencies haven’t fully ironed out yet. Being aware of them can help you get the most out of AI while minimizing the potential pitfalls.

Implementation challenges

Most AI tools for content writers aren’t prohibitively expensive, but there is an upfront cost in terms of staff time and software costs to get your new AI content workflow up and running. If you’ve done something one way for years, implementing a whole new way of working can be challenging. The key to overcoming this is giving your team dedicated time to familiarize themselves or receive training on new AI-based tools, best practices, and how to get the most out of them.

Similarly, if you’re reselling white label AI software, expect to spend a bit of extra time helping your clients get comfortable with a new way of doing things.

Maintaining data privacy and security

Sometimes technology runs way ahead of regulation, and AI is one such situation. Machine learning involves being trained on huge amounts of data which may contain private information. It’s your responsibility as a marketer to ensure your work adheres to your local data privacy regulations and that you take steps to avoid data breaches and security loopholes. A good way to do this is to choose trusted, reputable AI solutions providers.

Lack of humanity

One of the most common mistakes agencies make when starting to use AI is over-relying on it. Yes, it can dramatically streamline your processes, but it’s important to maintain a human role throughout the content creation process. AIs aren’t capable of creativity and empathy the way humans are, and their output can be robotic and boring without the human touch. It’s especially important to be aware of this when using AI for social media since authentic interactions are important to success on social platforms.

Limited adaptability and relevance to new trends

AI relies on the data it was trained on to form new content, but consumer preferences and market dynamics can change quickly. Make sure you have a system in place to track emerging content trends and consumer interests so you can ensure your content is as relevant and irresistible as possible.

Tools you’ll need for AI content marketing

AI can do a lot more than just produce text and AI art based on prompts. To get the most out of AI solutions in your agency’s content marketing efforts, these tools should be on your radar.

• Content management systems with AI capabilities: AI CMS marketing integrations can supercharge the impact of your content. Use AI to audit existing content in your CMS for tone, keyword usage, and more. Automatically add missing metadata, alt text, and other SEO must-haves. Serve better personalized content recommendations to site visitors. That’s just the surface of what you can achieve with AI CMS integrations. 
• Data analytics tools for tracking and analyzing content performance: Gain instant insights into how your content is performing and how it can be improved. Uncover valuable information about user patterns and behaviors when interacting with your content to supercharge your audience segmentation efforts.
• AI-powered chatbots for customer engagement: Connect customers to all the information they need with CMS-integrated AI-powered chatbots. Drive valuable connections with customers and leave them with a positive impression of your client’s business.
• AI content creation tools: Last but not least, a high-quality content creation tool—or several—or indispensable for content agencies today. Use them to create original content, refine existing content, and ideate.

How to implement successful AI content marketing

To get the most out of AI in content marketing, it’s important to have a solid implementation plan. Follow these tried and true strategies to take your content services to new heights.

1. Start with research

The basic best practices of content marketing don’t change just because AI is in the mix. Any successful campaign begins with thorough research into the target audience, competitors, and broader market trends. As always, make sure you understand the audience's preferences and pain points which will inform your content creation. AI tools can help you during this research stage by compiling relevant data and competitive insights.

2. Develop your strategy

Once you have a handle on the audience and market, you can create a content strategy that aligns with your client’s business goals, whether that’s boosting traffic, generating leads, or getting more sales.

In your strategy, outline the platforms you intend to use, content pillars, and types of content you’ll create. In collaboration with your client, you should also determine the metrics you’ll use to measure success. 

3. Tap into the power of AI tools

With your strategy in place, you can put your AI tools to work for everything from generating specific content ideas, conducting keyword research, creating content, auditing it for tone, and analyzing data. Decide how you’ll work with AI tools to create impactful, humanized content. You might have points throughout your process where content creators review the AI output, or you may have a refining stage at the end before content is delivered to ensure it meets your requirements and standards.

How to future-proof your AI content marketing

AI is here to stay. If you want your agency to continue delivering content services for years to come, it’s important to commit yourself to staying up to date on how this new tech evolves. Here’s how to do just that:

• Continuously learn about new developments: Find a way to stay abreast of new developments in AI tech for content marketing, whether that’s subscribing to an industry newsletter or attending occasional webinars.
• Push the limits of what you can accomplish with AI: Adopt a culture of pushing to see how your team can accomplish more using AI tools.
• Try new technologies before they’re mainstream: Don’t be afraid to test new solutions as they emerge, even if you don’t use them for client projects yet. This will help your agency stay one step ahead in terms of benefiting from new tools.