AI Is the Future of Marketing: How to Stay Ahead with HubSpot's AI Tools & More
Alright, alright. Let’s talk about AI.
As I’m sure you’re already aware (if you’re not, a brief scroll through LinkedIn will do the trick), artificial intelligence has revolutionized various industries. Marketing is no exception. AI has gained some serious popularity for its ability to enhance marketing strategies, reduce time spent on tedious tactic execution, improve customer experiences, and drive business growth.
Along with the rest of my fellow Evenbounders, I’ve been closely following the AI craze throughout recent months. We all went through the same phases of skepticism, confusion, and maybe even a little fear. But, while I can’t speak for the rest of my team on this one, I can say that I’ve now reached the excitement phase. There are just so many tools out there now, and they all have their own ways of simultaneously making my job easier and my work better. AI can do the same for you.
Hear some other Evenbounders’ perspectives on AI from our recent Marketing in Minutes podcast episode!
If you’re still unsure about using AI for marketing or how to get started, I’ll guide you through the basics.
Table of Contents
Looking for information on a specific topic? Click the links below to skip to the most relevant section.
What Is AI?
AI (artificial intelligence) refers to the development of intelligent technological systems that can perform tasks that normally require human intelligence. These systems learn from data, adapt to new information, and can even make informed decisions and predictions.
How Does AI Work?
AI encompasses various subfields like machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, and more — all of which take a certain level of technical expertise to fully grasp. Here’s the simplified version of how AI works:
Data is collected from various sources, such as customer interactions, online behavior, purchase history, social media, and more. This is where most scrutiny about AI comes from, as some users are unsure about the quality and factual accuracy of data sources (more on that later).
From there, the data is preprocessed and cleared of irrelevant information, so it can be used to train a particular AI model. After training, the AI model is evaluated with various efficacy and accuracy tests. Upon passing, the model is deployed for use.
But the work doesn’t stop there. AI models can continuously learn from new data, allowing them to adapt and improve over time.
Using AI tools is very simple. Most require you to type or speak a prompt, then the AI tool will instantaneously emit a response. Of course, every AI tool is different so the process may change a bit depending on what you’re using.
For the most part, using AI is easy, and it can get you the answer you need in just seconds.
How to Use AI for Marketing
As a marketer, the most important thing for you to know is AI is a powerful resource that, when used effectively and appropriately, can help you and your business grow. It can handle monotonous, time-sucking tasks (think CRM cleanup, email templates, ad copy) so you can spend more time honing your strategy and nurturing ideas that will drive big-picture growth.
Below are a few of the most popular areas marketers are using AI for currently:
- Data cleanup. So long are the days of manually sifting through data (can I get an amen?!). You can use AI to collect, add, remove, and organize data on its own. Whether you need to clean up CRM contacts or find the top-performing social posts from last year, you’re covered.
- Data-driven decision-making. Taking this a step further, AI can also review data and generate predictions or decisions based on it. These outputs can help you decide which business or marketing strategy to execute.
- Content generation. From website pages to ad copy, email subject lines, blog articles, and more, AI can handle a large portion of content writing for you. While you may need to take a few minutes for tweaking and checking brand consistency, you can write something in 30 minutes that used to take three hours. AI can also help you brainstorm ideas if you’re struggling with writer’s block. It happens to the best of us.
- Real-time personalization. AI can help you change a customer’s experience on your website in real time, based on their preferences and behaviors. For instance, if they show interest in a specific product or service, they could receive a relevant content offer mentioning that product or service on the next page they visit. It’s a great way to increase the chances of conversion.
- SEO. While this is still a bit green, some AI tools can make suggestions to improve SEO, both in technical and content strategy use cases. You can use tools to learn what relevant, high-traffic keywords to target and how to write pages or optimize existing ones for them.
- Sales support. In sales, it’s so easy to see how wasted time leads to a loss in revenue. AI can help out by prospecting, drafting follow-up emails, sorting through CRM data, and generating quick status updates on leads.
- Call recording and transcription. Wouldn’t you love to be more engaged in meetings, rather than focusing on taking good notes during them? AI call recording and transcription automatically capture the video and transcribes conversations so you can go back and reference what you need when you need.
- Reporting. In as long as it takes you to say, “I need a quarterly summary of website visits from last year,” AI can generate the report for you. Mind. Blown.
Is AI Going to Take My Job?
Now, if you have great reading comprehension, you’ll remember me mentioning a bit of fear many marketers felt (and still may be feeling) surrounding AI. Much of this fear originates from a thought process that looks a bit like this:
“Wow — AI can do so much, so much faster than I can. Is it going to take my job??”
My short answer to that is no — at least not if you learn how to use it. While AI is a great resource for us marketers, it’s currently just that: a resource. There are still many parts of our jobs that AI can’t do.
Critical, strategic thinking. Adaptability to emerging trends. Imagination and creativity. A human touch.
What I will say is that it’s likely you’ll lose your job as you currently know it. AI will, and already has, caused marketers to shift. More research, new processes, and even new product offerings are coming, and your job won’t look like it did six months ago, maybe even a week ago.
But isn’t the ability to pivot and adapt one of our greatest strengths as marketers? I’ve got faith in us.
The Pros & Cons of Using AI for Marketing
All that said, AI has some obviously great benefits, but it's not free of fault. Here's a simple rundown of the pros and cons of using AI for marketing tasks.
| Pros | Cons |
| Increased efficiency & time saved | Lack of human connection and creativity |
| Hyper-personalization & audience targeting | Lack of SEO consideration (for now, at least) |
| Improved results — whether it be a stronger blog title or more accurate data list | Content can sound too robotic or similar to other pieces |
| More informed decision making | Predictions, analyses, and facts can be incorrect |
| Streamlined customer service | People don't love chatting with robots |
| Cost savings | It takes time to research, learn, and get comfortable with new tools before they can start working for you |
So if you’re skeptical of AI, you’re not the only marketer with concerns, and you’re not wrong to have them. The important thing is that you make yourself aware of the tools available and learn what will work and won’t work for you.
Not sure where to start? I have some suggestions.
An Honest Review of HubSpot's AI Tools
This spring, HubSpot launched two proprietary AI tools: Content Assistant and ChatSpot.ai.
Content Assistant
Content Assistant creates AI-powered content inside the HubSpot CMS. It can generate blog topics, write paragraphs, and draft emails, all in a particular tone. The tool launched in private beta, and is still in that stage as HubSpot works to iron out some kinks. It has potential though, and as a content marketing pro, I’m excited for what’s to come of it.
ChatSpot.ai
ChatSpot.ai, on the other hand, launched in public alpha. It's a conversational CRM bot that you can use to quickly complete tasks with chat-based commands. From adding contacts to pulling reports, prospecting, and forecasting, it's a game-changer for anyone operating in the CRM space.
Other AI Marketing Tools to Try
Not on HubSpot? There are plenty of other AI marketing tools to check out — seriously, like hundreds. Some of my favorites are:
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- ChatGPT — Currently the most popular of them all, OpenAI’s ChatGPT is a content generation powerhouse. Feed it prompts (detailed ones!) and it’ll give you the information you need in seconds.
- Jasper.ai — Similarly, Jasper.ai has a bunch of features that will help you generate short- and long-form content. I trialed this one for ad copy and thought it was cool I could add brand voice characteristics. It also has an image creation tool in beta.
- Grammarly — You’ll never mess up another comma splice again. I use this tool every day (there’s a Chrome extension!) to check spelling and grammar. You can also use it to create and stick to specific editorial guidelines of your choosing.
- Semrush — A longstanding champion of SEO management, Semrush has an SEO Writing Assistant (SWA) tool that provides suggestions on how to optimize a piece of content for higher search rankings.
- Lately — For the social media superheroes out there, this one’s for you. Lately generates branded social posts, analyzes engagement data, and provides suggestions for amplifying reach.
- Visla — I haven’t tried this one yet, but it sounds amazing. You give the tool a written script or description, and it will create a video from it.
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AI’s here to stay, and the future is bright for AI-assisted marketing. If you want help navigating the evolving landscape and using it to strengthen and streamline your marketing efforts, we’re happy to lend a helping hand at Evenbound.
Give us a holler, and we’ll get back to you shortly with information on how we can help you achieve your goals. And yes, we’re real humans.
