AI in marketing: hype or game changer?

Is your social feed  bombarded with ads promising that AI holds the key to unlocking the secrets of marketing success? These ads paint a picture of effortless efficiency and guaranteed results, but the reality is far less clear. With vague directions, unproven outputs, and hefty price tags, the world of AI marketing tools can be overwhelming. As you wade through hundreds of products and applications, the biggest question emerges: How do you determine where to start and what’s truly worthwhile?

In a recent Forbes article, Bernard Marr wrote, "Either brands are doing it (AI), and they don't want to talk about it because they think it's a competitive advantage – or, they're not actually doing anything … maybe just starting to run pilot projects or find someone on their team who can lead this … it’s very hard to find the intersection of business professionals who understand what AI is capable of doing, and can apply it to real business problems and use cases.”

So how did we start at Ample? And how might you? 

Learning new technologies is simply part of the job of a digital agency. It’s rare to meet a new client who doesn’t have some piece of software, sales tool, or media manager that is new to us. Our approach has always been to flex and grow. And that’s exactly how we approach AI — proactively learning what we can and figuring out how we can incorporate it into our process. We’ve used it to help generate proposals more efficiently, craft conceptual imagery for presentations, and to evaluate and summarize large amounts of consumer data.  

Embracing AI in your business should be exciting, not daunting! Here’s how we make it sink or swim:

1. Start with curiosity:
   • What are you interested in? Play around and see what’s possible. The first step in learning what can be done with any new technology is exploring how it works.  Go create some images with Dall-E 2, videos with Lumen5 or create art with Canva’s AI Art Generator. Let your imagination run a bit wild!
2. Scout with a task in mind:
   • Think of opportunities that AI can help you specifically. In our experience, at Ample, unenjoyable repeatable tasks are prime candidates. For you it could be crunching data, summarizing text or generating new ideas. 
3. Trial Runs Are Your Sandbox:
   • Test these tools in a controlled environment where it’s safe to make mistakes. AI is not always right. In fact, we have found it to be wrong on many occasions. Build some sand castles or knock them down before you adopt a new tool, pay for a tool or add it to your process.  Learn what works and what doesn’t in a no-stress setting.
4. Measure Magic and Mishaps:
   • Once you feel like you have a winner, don’t forget to measure. Set up metrics that let you measure both successes and flops. In our business, sometimes you feel like you have a perfect solution, and then come to realize that you actually had a great solution to a one-off event. This is how we learn—fast and fun!
5. Rapid Reflections:
   • If you do have a winner and you're ready to invest make sure to keep the feedback loop quick and open. What did the team think? How did the tool handle real-world scenarios? Is it actually increasing engagement rates, or is your new automation just churning our fluff. AI is the tool, but you are the expert.
6. Ethical Checkpoints:
   • Regularly hit pause and evaluate your AI tools against ethical benchmarks. There are all sorts of privacy issues, copyright questions, and SEO implications around using AI generated content on the horizon. Staying ahead means staying aware.
7. Celebrate and Iterate:
   • Every trial teaches something new.  Not every one of ours have worked out. Celebrate the learning, tweak your tactics, and jump back in. Innovation is a cycle of fun experiments!

Integrating AI into our strategies not only pushes us to the forefront of digital marketing innovation but also gives us a chance to glimpse the future that is to come. We remind ourselves that today’s AI is the worst AI we will experience in our lifetime. It will only get faster and more powerful. In our case, we want to keep learning so that we can use that power for good. What do you think? Is AI Skynet, building terminators to take your job, or R2D2, ready to help you fix your spaceship?