2023 has been a year of disruptive technology. ChatGPT has gained public recognition and companies have been rushing to bring their best AI business tools to a market eager to learn how to use AI to make business operations more efficient. This year I came out of a graduate program in communications where I was researching human-machine communication in the industrial world and somehow it’s in digital marketing I landed.
Just as a business should review its finances at the end of the year, now is also a great time to reset your marketing strategy. In my own marketing strategy, I like to use a blended strategy that both leverages technology and creates content designed for humans. This emphasis on human-centered content is especially important today.
Over the past year, I’ve seen many advertisements for various AI products that promise to completely improve certain aspects of daily life through calendar management, content writing, and even news generation. advertising. Tools like ChatGPT And SLAB have brought us the ability to make machines create almost anything we want.
Here’s the caveat: AI can help, but it absolutely cannot replace your team and the effort you put into your strategy. And having a human touch will be much more important in the coming year.
What is human-centered marketing?
I’ll start by saying that marketers won’t be replaced by AI, but they will most likely be replaced by marketers who know how to make AI work in their favor.
I get it: you’re inundated with ads for different products that use AI to solve common problems. There are many great tools that use technology and machine learning to facilitate different business functions. You can automate your calendar, social media posts, and SEO strategy. And you should definitely start adding some tools to your repertoire, but first let’s talk about how to reach your audience without buying anything new.
We interact with algorithms every day. Our music streaming services predict new songs for us to listen to based on what we’ve listened to before (this ruined automatic playlists for me thanks to kids’ content). Search engines make recommendations to us based on algorithms that judge the credibility of sites on the web, and social media pages know exactly what you’re most likely to buy next and show you ads for it.
While it’s tempting to purchase a variety of machine learning-based apps in the hopes that they will help you automate your marketing strategy, I’ll stop you there. Humans like content that is clearly made for humans by humans. So while AI can absolutely help with this process, you need to make sure that the human part comes first.
The components of human-centered marketing
I created an acronym to help you remember the components of a human-centered marketing campaign: REAL. The best marketing will be A.elasticable, Epedagogic, Aauthority and Likable.
- Relatable: Putting yourself in your customer’s shoes is a great way to communicate with your audience. This could be by naming a pain point (for example, “My feet are always wet in my winter boots”) and emphasizing that pain point.
- Educative: I get a lot of pushback from clients about creating educational content. They’re afraid that (1) their competitors will find the content and steal it, and (2) their customers will learn how to fix the problem themselves. Here is the truth: Buyers who read useful content are more likely to convertand search engines are specifically designed to prioritize useful content.
- Authoritative: Every customer who finds your business finds you because they are looking to solve a certain problem. Authoritative content establishes you as a thought leader and also leverages your expertise in your niche.
- Friendly: One of the first things you’ll learn in any sales training is that people are more likely to buy from people they like. Your marketing must be authentic and credible.
Whatever combination of marketing channels you use, try to make sure it fits within these guidelines.
Email Marketing: Keep Spam Away
Email marketing is a source of frustration for many business owners. Emails reach spam folders instead of targets, or recipients simply don’t open emails. My favorite part is explaining to customers that yes, we absolutely do spam. Spam, by definition, is simply unsolicited mass email.
One of my marketing clients uses ZoomInfo, a customer relationship manager (CRM) that packs a punch. This CRM finds leads quickly and is capable of sending thousands of emails per day. However, modern email clients have become fashionable in terms of what a marketing email looks like, and some servers reject these emails entirely.
When my client received an email informing him that his message had not been delivered because the spam filter had flagged it and rejected it, he wanted to know how we could get these emails past this virtual guardian.
I said, “If it’s a good lead, why don’t you email them personally?” »
The best marketers understand how collaborate with AI but also knowing how and when to intervene and exercise human judgment. A powerful CRM is a great tool, but the truth is that many people are reluctant to be the target of mass email campaigns (including me, a mass email campaign designer).
It’s not enough to step back and let your automation do the work. When sending emails through a CRM or email list, make sure the wording is personal and friendly and doesn’t sound too much like a sales email. I like to incorporate informative content into my emails, which seems to lead to better open rates.
This also applies to your advertising campaigns and social media strategy. It’s great to post content regularly! But does your regular content humanize your brand? My recommendation is to create a social media calendar that also prioritizes humans: customers, staff, yourself – anything that puts a face to the name.
When I look at the analytics of many of the social media pages I manage, there is one thing consistent among the companies I work with: the most popular content is simple content that shows brand leadership and employees who are simply people. I’ve seen photos of employees simply sitting in the office achieve four times the engagement rate than carefully designed Canva graphics.
So if your employees participated in a day of service or gathered in person for a meeting for the first time in several months, take a photo and share it.
It also helps to not take yourself too seriously. Although you may not be expected to become as wild as the Wendy’s Facebook page, show a certain lightness and a sense of humor in your advertising. Encourage your staff to dress casually to make their portraits appear more approachable.
Search Engine Marketing: Leveraging the Algorithms We Interact With
These algorithms are also constantly evolving, meaning the strategies you used to reach potential customers last year might not reach them as easily next year.
Google and Microsoft are both rolling out their own versions of AI search, leaving SEO specialists reeling from the potential for loss in rankings and clicks. Currently you can drive Google AI Search Experience (SGE) to see how this changes research.
With AI search, the AI answer displays before all other search results. The application summarizes what it considers to be the best possible answer to the search query based on information currently available on the Internet.
The big fear is that no one will click on the pages anymore. However, SGE cites its main sources in its summary. Therefore, SEOs will need to deviate from the traditional keyword and content strategy and create clear, authoritative and up-to-date content with a call to action right from the start of the content. Additionally, search will prioritize results that provide a better user experience, which typically comes from human-centered marketing.
For humans, by humans is the key
A few years ago, I spent a year reviewing content for Stanley Tate, owner of TateEsq, an attorney specializing in discharging student debt in bankruptcy. His goal was to create content that answered every question people might have about student loans. After a year of optimizing his blog, his site ranked very well on Google.
He used two strategies: he covered every topic, even ones that might not bring him business, like federal student loans, and he produced highly informative content that people would be likely to read and come back for.
This is the type of content that will likely perform well when AI search is fully deployed, because it explains the problem, links to credible sources, and demonstrates a level of expertise and authority that will attract humans.
No matter what channels you market on, just make sure your content is designed for people.
Photo by NDAB Creativity/Shutterstock.com
