You have to look hard to find any field or industry where Generative AI (GenAI) isn’t playing a role. It’s not the bogeyman some people have expected, but it does have several challenges that are proving tricky to overcome. There’s the small matter of copyright infringement, for example, and some pesky inaccurate content issues. However, there are also several major benefits, largely concerning efficiency, increased productivity, and even some burgeoning creativity.
We will look at the pros and cons of AI in marketing and how B2G marketers can incorporate artificial intelligence-generated content into their public procurement marketing strategies.
Grab Hold of Opportunities
Here are five opportunities in AI content creation (including text and AI-generated images) that are ripe for the picking.
1) Personalisation
Personalisation is big in marketing. Consumers like ever-more closely tailored marketing efforts that are just for them. AI is the perfect tool. It processes huge amounts of data to segment your target audience. Then it uses consumers’ behaviour, preferences, and past purchases to help you customise marketing messages that speak directly to their pain points. Providing spot-on solutions helps to build customer loyalty and potential brand advocates.
2) Cost Efficiency
It doesn’t matter how big or small your business is, cost-cutting is always a priority. Generative AI’s automation features take on many time-consuming and resource-intensive aspects of marketing, including social media posts, image generation, product descriptions, and other types of content creation.
AI tools, like ChatGBT, DALL-E, MidJourney, and Gemini produce copywriting, hi-res graphics, and even videos, leaving your team to focus on more strategic tasks. This increase in efficiency improves productivity with higher returns and lower costs.
3) Creativity Unleashed
Whether AI can be creative is up for debate, but it can brainstorm some interesting ideas that people might never have connected with marketing strategies. This does two things:
- It inspires marketers to push the envelope, ramp up their creative process, and come up with even more creative ideas.
- It generates content that marketers can experiment with, tweak, and adapt to suit their purpose.
AI tools, like DALL-E, are designed to generate amazing visuals and graphics (no matter how surreal). The only limit is your ingenuity.
4) Enhanced Decision-Making
AI is a data-crunching extraordinaire. That’s kind of the point. But it doesn’t just crunch data, it also interprets it. This gives marketers the data necessary to make informed and insightful decisions on just about anything, like real-time adjustments to keyword suggestions and predictive analytics.
Predictive analytics is particularly handy, as it forecasts trends, spots opportunities, and guides campaign strategies and optimisation.
5) 24/7 Availability
Your customers might keep strange hours (night owls, early birds) or you might have international interest. The point is that when really matters. Do they need answers at 3am? Does someone in Australia have a crisis that needs fixing immediately?
Unless you’re prepared to go to great expense to have a night shift manning your customer care lines, cutting-edge chatbots are the way to go. They’re available 24/7/365. They’re patient and calm, even when dealing with a grumpy customer in the early hours of the morning.
Customers love that kind of accessibility, and even if chatbots can’t resolve the issue, they’ll be directed to a human who can. This means that your human specialists only deal with significant (tricky) problems and not those who have to switch their computers off and on again.
Dodge Risks
Now, we’re going to look at five risks in AI-generated content to avoid.
1) Ethical Concerns
GenAI produces content and graphics based on information available online. But, it’s not necessarily unique content and this increases the risk of copyright infringement and complex civil suits. Complex because the powers that be haven’t quite figured out how to ensure copyright protection when artificial intelligence – and not humans – is responsible for AI-generated text and AI images.
There are two more ethical concerns.
- Accuracy: Someone once said that you shouldn’t believe 90% of the information on the net. That may or may not be true, but the point is valid. AI crunches data but it can’t tell if the data is true or false.
- Bias: Like accuracy, AI uses the data available to create content, but can’t tell if the content is offensive or biased in any way. It could create content that is offensive to certain races or religions, or it could produce content that endorses xenophobia or religious persecution.
The kicker is that it’s completely unintentional. That’s why there needs to be a human presence managing the GenAI process.
2) Oh, the Humanity!
Currently, even the most advanced AI and Machine Learning technology can’t replicate human emotions. AI-generated content seems impersonal, lacking human authenticity. This might be fine in financial reporting or science applications. It’s not fine if you want to engage your target audience and enhance interactivity.
In this instance, AI content can serve as a launch pad for the humans on your marketing team to hone their writing processes, kickstart their creativity, and enhance emotional connections that resonate with your audience.
3) Data Privacy
Data privacy is non-negotiable, unfortunately it’s very difficult to provide watertight security. It’s even trickier with AI because, as we’ve established, it analyses huge amounts of data. Some of which can be private. AI can’t necessarily tell what info is out of bounds, which puts you at risk of privacy violations, non-compliance with GDPR and CCPA restrictions, fines, and legal action.
4) Content Quality
Once again, we come back to AI’s primary failing: It’s not human. While it can create blog posts, marketing emails, social media posts, articles, ad copy, and scripts, the quality of the content is not assured. Instead, it’s a base writers can use to refine marketing messages and personalise marketing content.
5) Lost Jobs
It’s been a constant fear since AI started to go mainstream. The efficiency, accuracy, and automation of AI technology, not to mention the cost savings with no salaries to pay, put several jobs in jeopardy. Perhaps the most at-risk jobs are those related to graphic design and image generation. Optimists reckon that instead of losing jobs, employees can adopt new roles, like AI systems management in the graphics department.
It’s not a nominal position. There is a genuine need for skilled professionals to optimise AI use – to milk its full potential. This includes experimentation, implementation, and evaluation. You’ll need to train staff to be equal to the job, but after that, you’ll reap the benefits of greater expertise and specialisation.
AI Tools in Marketing
There are many, many AI tools marketers can use in the B2G sector. We’re going to look at four of the best AI generators.
- ChatGPT: AI-generated text for blogs, articles, emails, and presentations based on prompts. For example, “Please write a blog post on how AI is transforming marketing.” ChatGPT Plus does the same, only faster, with greater creativity, and an ability to adjust the writing style to suit different contexts.
- Gemini: Google’s version of ChatGPT, however, it also uses web searches to provide real-time access to websites and can translate content with remarkable accuracy.
- DALL-E: From the people who brought us ChatGPT, DALL-E and DALL-E2 excel at translating text into high-quality, high-res AI images, logos, branding, and videos. DALL-E2 can reject input it deems harmful or improper.
- MidJourney: Like DALL-E, it generates high-quality, creative images. The creative process is powered by Machine Learning artificial intelligence technology.
Cadence Marketing Helps You Engage With Your Target Market
B2G marketing is marching along at quite a clip. There are almost constant advancements, especially in technology that support creating and implementing creative strategies and campaigns.
Cadence provides a range of services to keep you up to date with B2G marketing trends and ensure your target market always keeps you front of mind when it comes to purchasing products, services, or public sector works.
Contact us to book a free consultation and find out more about how our marketers’ expertise can help you make the most of AI technology in your mission to conquer the B2G procurement market.
