ChatGPT certainly owns the headlines regarding AI tools for marketing, but what else is out there? What AI marketing tools should be considered in your growth marketing strategy to help you ramp up your revenue?
What are AI tools for marketing?
AI marketing tools help teams complete a marketing task with the help of AI. That could be content outlining, persona development – which can be done with Google Bard, for example and other tasks. In essence, these tools help companies be more efficient with their marketing efforts.
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How to decide which tools are best for you
One of the key benefits of using AI in marketing is efficiency. For example, years ago, outlining an article could take a while. Today, I use the Copylime outline tool to get me a first draft and then build on that, which leads me to another pro of using AI. It can help us be more creative. The AI output gets us something of a content outline, and from there, we can build on what should be in the article and write it from there.
When to use AI marketing tools
Keep in mind that not all tools nor all tasks are created equal. It’s important to decide what tasks are okay to be done with an assist from AI. For example, if you want to create content that really shows off your uniqueness, personality, and opinion, do not use AI tools to write your content. Also, keep in mind that AI doesn’t always get the facts right, so it’s so important to not just take the AI output at face value.
How much budget do I need for AI marketing tools?
While there are some free tools, many do carry a fee, and those fees can add up quickly. To determine what percentage of your marketing budget should be allocated to software – including AI tools – run your numbers through this free marketing budget planner.
Budget for software – including AI – now with this free marketing budget calculator
Understand the rules
Digital policy expert Kristina Podnar says it’s important to know the rules around using AI for marketing. As she puts it:
If you are going to use AI tools for marketing, make sure you understand the licensing arrangement and vet that:
1. What inputs you provide to the tools are not being used to further build out the intelligence of the AI tool. If they are, do not feed proprietary or IP info into the tools.
2. Make sure that the output of the AI tools are ones that you own from a copyright/IP perspective (check out the licensing) and that you can incorporate the outputs into any downstream products that you may develop or feed to your customers.
Tools like Otter are awesome, but you assume you have permission to record the other person’s voice and use it in AI which may not be true based on local laws/jurisdictions. So think through privacy and consents when you are using tools in context of clients and third parties or outside of your immediate team.
Recommended AI marketing tools
Now let’s look at some AI tools worth exploring. We asked several experts in the field to give us their recommendations on tools to consider. So here are some of the AI marketing tools that they recommended – listed in alphabetical order. I ordered them in topical areas:
Content Creation
In this category, we have AI tools that help teams create content.
Byword AI
Byword is an advanced AI platform for generating high-quality articles at scale, offering features like image generation, multi-language support, and seamless integrations, said Scot Westwater, voice marketing expert and author of “Voice Marketing: Harnessing the Power of Conversational AI to Drive Customer Engagement.”
Copy.ai
Copy.ai is an AI-driven platform that assists in generating creative copywriting for various marketing and business needs, said Scot
ElevenLabs
ElevenLabs lets you create audio content from text, including the option to clone your own voice. I demonstrate the results here.
Grammarly
Grammarly is an AI-powered grammar and spell-check tool that can be used across web browsers.
Hyperwrite
Hyperwrite is an AI-powered writing tool that helps users create and edit content efficiently, said Scot.
Jasper
Jasper is an AI copywriter and content generator for teams, offering solutions for blog posts, marketing copy, and AI-generated images.
SubjectLine.com
SubjectLine.com rates your copy against best practices for email marketing, and then the AI gives feedback on how to improve the subject line.
MarketMuse
MarketMuse is an AI-powered content strategy tool that helps your content outrank the competition, said Mike Kaput, chief content officer at the Marketing Artificial Intelligence Institute.
Podsqueeze
In Podqueeze, you can upload a podcast episode, and Podsqueeze will create a full transcription, show notes, top quotes, keywords, posts for social media, and more, said Steve Miller, author of “
Writer
Writer is an all-in-one AI content generation platform built to be enterprise-grade, secure/compliant, and designed specifically for teams, said Mike.
Design
Here we have software solutions that help teams design visual assets.
Gamma App
The Gamma App helps with design. “If you want to get fancy and create beautiful presentations, Gamma.app is your new BFF!” said Nicole Donnelly, founder at AI Smart Marketing.
LogoAi
LogoAi is an AI tool that specializes in creating professional and customizable logos for businesses, said Scot.
Looka
Looka offers AI-powered branding solutions, including logo design and business branding packages, said Scot.
Recraft
“I use Recraft to create icons for marketing collateral,” said Leo Morejon, Co-Chair of the AI Marketers Guild.“As many know, finding unique icons for websites, presentations, and other materials is a challenge. Ensuring these icons are distinct can seem nearly impossible without hiring designers. Recraft saves you both time and energy, ensuring your icons remain unique.”
Public Relations
Getting quoted by media outlets is a strategy that has worked for decades, and there’s no reason it should be left behind in the AI era.
Press Jockey
Press Jockey automates your public relations process. (Recommended by Andrea Rickett)
Productivity
To do good marketing, we also have to stay on task. That’s what’s highlighted here.
Monica
Monica is an AI-powered personal assistant designed to help users manage tasks and information, said Scot.
Otter AI
Otter.ai is your co-pilot on meetings and produces detailed notes, summaries, and even highlights key topics. This can also be used to transcribe podcast episodes and find specific topics in the transcript.
Search
Obviously, people search for information constantly on the web, and some AI tools make that process easier.
AIPRM for ChatGPT
AIPRM for ChatGPTadds a list of curated prompt templates for SEO, SaaS and more to ChatGPT, said Leo.
Perplexity AI
Perplexity AI is similar to ChatGPT but provides the sources with links from where the content was sourced from.
“It’s a conversational search that actually cites its sources,” said Mike.
Social media
Certainly, social media is still a part of marketing, and here are some of those options.
HubSpot AI Content Assistant
The built-in HubSpot content assistant helps draft content when drafting and scheduling them directly in your HubSpot dashboard.
Lately AI
Lately is a social selling platform that takes source content and transforms it into social media posts.
“I typically write and publish a blog post weekly,” said David Meerman Scott, author of 12 books, including “The New Rules of Marketing and PR.” “Prior to using Lately, I would send out one tweet and one LinkedIn update linking to my post just after I publish it. Now, using Lately, it takes me less than five minutes to autogenerate, edit, and schedule a dozen or more different social shares with hashtags and links pointing to my post.”
Video
Video tools that help us repurpose content.
Opus Clip
Opus Clip is a video repurposing tool that takes a long video and turns it into short clips in a click. (Recommended by Maurice Maxwell)
Pictory
Pictory creates shorter, shareable videos from your long-form video content. (Recommended by Andrea)
VideoInsights
VideoInsights.io is a plugin that enables ChatGPT to capture a YouTube video transcript. You can then prompt to create the same information as Podsqueeze does for podcasts, said Steve.
Future Trends and Advancements in AI Marketing Tools
The future of AI tools in marketing is exploding, and there are new tools constantly. All. The. Time. So test, keep an eye on what’s new as much as you can, and see what solution might make your process and performance better. And there’s most likely going to be a tie into the Metaverse here at some point.
Character.ai, which Steve recommended, is already taken that step. He explained that this tool allows users to create their own characters, which can be anything from fictional characters to real people. Users can then chat with their characters and ask them questions, tell them stories, or just have a conversation.
So keep an eye out for the tools that can make your job easier and ignore the ones that don’t.
“I try to experiment with 3-5 new AI tools each week to see what other solutions are out there that might be able to improve my processes or workflows,” said Brian Piper, director of content strategy and assessment at the University of Rochester.
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