AI White Paper
2021
Content AI
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Whitepaper
The Artificial Intelligence (AI) evolution is continuing to take shape. AI can now be easily
integrated into all aspects of content marketing execution thus taking both
time-consuming and skill-wasting tasks out of the marketers hands. Machine learning
and natural language technologies have transformed the digital marketing landscape
into a never-ending innovation loop.
Today, content marketers are able to combine their own creative genius with the
technological power of AI to enhance customer experiences with hyper-personalized
marketing content. In the ever-evolving marketing environment, content professionals
are pressing forward with AI at un-unprecedented levels.
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The Six Faces of AI
in Content Marketing
The term “artificial intelligence” has become a catch-all term for multiple forms of
technology. However, AI can be broken into six different categories based on how
data is collected and used. The six types of AI include:
Machine Learning
1
Evolutionary Computation
2
Neural Networks
3
Speech Processing
4
Natural Language Processing
5
Planning
6
Generally speaking, Machine Learning (ML) and Natural Language Processing (NLP)
are the two types of AI that drive most content marketing use cases. In this
whitepaper, we’ll be taking a deeper dive into how AI is used with a specific lens on
content marketing.
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A Deeper Dive
Natural Language Processing (NLP): NLP allows computers to understand
human language as it’s commonly spoken. For example, frequently used in
search functions such as Siri or Alexa, NLP picks up keywords in our language
and responds accordingly. NLP identifies patterns in stored data as well as
previously heard or read language. Computer systems that harness NLP read
text in human languages, interpret what it means using filters, and translate it
back to us.
How does the NLP output get understood by the AI?
Cloud computing provides the necessary technological laboratory to power AI analysis.
Without cloud technology’s processing power, AI-powered solutions would hamper the
bandwidth needed for practical applications. Innovations with NLP are rapidly improving with
increasing accuracy and quality. NLP is the power behind chatbots, voice searches, and other
marketing innovations.
Machine Learning (ML): At its core, ML is the most important driver of AI in content
marketing. Systems learn from absorbing data, identifying patterns, and making
decisions based on ML informed pattern recognition. These decisions are largely
automated with minimal human interaction. Content itself might change, but how
and why it’s delivered to audience profiles can be critical for campaign decisions. A
wide variety of content types with segmented performance attribution is a
common for how machine learning is applied digital marketing.
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Modern Uses of AI in
Content Marketing:
Before we delve into the benefits AI can provide for content marketing, let’s investigate the
applications it brings to the world at large. What niches does AI fit? What jobs is AI making
obsolete? By investigating the effect AI is having on other industries, we can more easily
understand how it addresses the shortcomings of content marketing.
Here are 10 ways AI is being used across a spectrum of different industries:
1. Hanson Robotics: Combining natural language processing with impressive neural
networks, Hanson has created human-looking robots like the famous "Sophia" that can
teach languages, be used as animatronics, and provide assistance in university and
medical training applications.
2. Roomba: The popular robot vacuum has been whirring its way across dirty floors since
2002. Its latest models use machine learning to pick out the most efficient routes to
clean floors quickly, which helped the company clean up $1.4 million in 2020.
3. Olly: This British-made voice-controlled AI assistant is mopping the floors with
competitors like Siri and Alexa as it can evolve its personality using advanced algorithms
to become more like the person who uses it—including reading facial expressions, verbal
patterns, habits, and tone of voice to start conversations and make suggestions. This is a
perfect example of evolutionary computation.
4. Pager: Designed to take pressure off doctors and nurses, Pager analyzes symptoms and
puts together data for healthcare recommendations. This means that doctors and
nurses get some of their time back and can be contacted for more serious issues by text
or video chat.
5. NVIDIA: NVIDIA has partnered with Massachusetts General Hospital to create
AI-powered machines that will detect diseases, diagnose patients, and make treatment
plans for them. These machines use machine learning to digest billions of medical
images.
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Modern Uses of AI in
Content Marketing:
6. Betterment: This financial tech whiz learns a user’s personality and goals to
offer advice on how to manage a portfolio, save for taxes, and perform trades and
transactions. Betterment has more than 615,000 customers and more than $29
billion in assets in 2021.
7. AlphaSense: This AI uses NLP to analyze financial institution reports and
materials by scanning millions of data points to give analysts a break from
thousands of hours of work. More than 1,000 financial firms, including many
Fortune 500 members, rely on this software.
8. Google Maps: For years, Google has been telling us to make a right turn in 100
feet. That’s AI at work, combining NLP and ML to reroute us when we miss a turn,
adjust for real-time traffic mishaps, and help us find our way.
9. Twitter: AI algorithms suggest the people you should follow, tweets you might
like, and news stories based on the social media giant’s ever evolving sense of your
personality. Twitter recently added machine learning and NLP in an effort to
eliminate terrorist language and hate speech. Twitter’s AI banned 300,000
accounts 6 months after launch, reporting that 95% of them were in fact AI
machines themselves. In 2020, over 1.5M accounts were banned for suspicious
activity.
10. Amazon: Ever the front-runner, Amazon released Alexa in 2014 to help users with
smart communication in their homes. Planning appointments, playing music,
making purchases, and much more have become common. Other AI examples
include intelligent search and product suggestions that improve the user
experience.
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The Rise of AI in
Content Marketing
Content marketing dates back to before
the turn of the 19th century when brands
like P&G, Michelin, and John Deere began
creating magazines that gave customers a
closer look at their products. Fast-forward
to today and content marketers have firmly
embraced the digital age to accomplish
similar goals with more precision.
The variations of content marketing across
blogs, ebooks, podcasts, webinars, and
videos is just scratching the surface. For the
first time in history, marketing teams are
able to harness the power of AI to accurately
plan, assess and track every piece of content
that is created.
The guesswork of how customers interact
with content has been replaced with
performance history and data. This surplus
of information opens content marketing
strategies to AI-analysis and optimization.
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Marketing and Content
Team’s Resistance to AI
Some marketers prefer acting on statistics like impressions, clicks, and views on a
dashboard. However, marketers have an opportunity to execute strategies with significantly
more intelligence by using the power of AI.
Today, analysis is automated by machines that do it in minutes or seconds. Advanced
marketers are often able to use AI across campaign setup, strategy and performance
analysis. The content AI evolution is upon us.
The ability to analyze millions of data points is the cornerstone of content marketing AI. In
addition, AI can quickly identify language patterns beyond human recognition to help
discover meaningful content opportunities.
The intersection of human creativity and
How does this work in practice? AI intelligence gives marketers the
insights needed to drive measurable
● Human intelligence uses data points performance. Content AI has transitioned
from an analysis and compilation tool to
to figure out that women aged
a source for insights and campaign
29-43 are the primary buyers of a recommendations.
certain product.
AI makes recommendations based on
● AI deduces at which times the past and present data, what customers
product is purchased most are looking for, and what trends are
frequently, the best converting gaining traction. Connecting the dots
across conversion channels, shopping
regions, and what other products
habits, the most appealing content, and
these customers are buying within a the language drives content
three-month time span. performance improvements.
● AI delivers the optimal language for
the customer segment, profile type,
and campaign objective to reach the
target audience.
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Why Companies
First Adopted AI
AI initially assisted content marketing teams by solving three major
pain points, resulting in:
Discovering hidden connections
1
Accelerating slow processes
2
Giving weight to what matters
3
Let’s dive deeper across these three points using a
modern marketing example.
In this example, your company markets hand lotions and
has launched a new line of products with scents that
represent famous cities across the world, like London,
Paris, New York, and San Francisco.
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AI Strategy #1
Discovering Hidden
Connections
In order to start marketing more expensive
hand lotions to your existing clientele, you’d
want to leverage the existing performance data.
For this example, the AI analysis should be
focused on understanding which customers will
favorably respond to expensive product-focused
content messaging. AI can rapidly search large
customer databases for groups that have a
higher propensity to buy
more expensive products.
This particular strategy is often referred to as
“audience segmentation” and can be
deployed rapidly. AI variations can further
identify usable marketing intelligence by
ingesting competitor search queries for
similar products and campaigns. This will
reveal what strategies work and which miss
the mark. Additionally, keywords and image
searches have subtle methodologies blind
to the human eye.
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AI Strategy #2
Accelerating Slow
Processes
A large amount of time is spent writing, designing, and creating content that builds value.
AI can changes this complex challenge by streamlining repetitive marketing tasks such as:
● Report generation ● Content scheduling
● Campaign measurement ● Optimization
● Lead generation ● Image search
● Large-scale content ● Keyword research
management ● Blog / article creation and
● Email marketing recipe(s) optimization
The automation of processes give marketers more time for high-level thinking and
Sometimes costly human errors that occur when performing repetitive tasks.
Most marketers use creativity and data to drive campaign decisions. Referring back to our hand
lotion example, content can be highly effective when offline experiences compliment the
segmentation strategies suggested by AI.
This illustrates the importance of human assistance when using AI to drive segmentation.
Messaging that speaks to a sophisticated, world-traveling woman who can afford luxury lotions
is vastly different from the woman who buys expensive lotions for herself once or twice a year
and has never been outside the U.S. These two customer profiles are built from what AI
collects, analyzes, and suggests.
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AI Strategy # 3
Giving Weight to
What Matters
When the Internet was in its infancy, it Every piece of content that is digitally
wasn’t a tool for marketing and sales. deployed can be tracked. Content
Advertising strategies revolved around marketers know if their pieces are opened
local newspapers, magazines, catalogs or read, what links are followed, what social
and flyers. Top-selling customers would media posts are “liked” or retweeted, what
be targeted through direct mail, and blogs are shared, and so forth.
television commercials were used to
drive direct conversions and Content AI processes performance data for
brand-focused campaigns. the purpose of identifying patterns. Fast
analysis and turnaround times allow for
These are now fundamentally dated tweaks that can shift ROI, engagement,
strategies. At the time, talented and conversion values.. AI analysis gives
marketers would look at statistics and brands the best chance to predict what
small data sets to guide campaign current and future customers want.
decisions. The opposite is true today.
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AI Strategy # 4
AI Analysis, SEO and
Keywords
In the section above, we highlighted
several ways AI makes life easier for the
typical content marketing team.
As marketers, it’s certainly a healthy
question to ask:
How AI can impact my content
marketing team's immediate future?
Here are some of the leading use cases:
Simplifying SEO activities is a large part of enterprise marketing strategies, but it’s more than creating
backlinks and identifying terms. These terms, which are called keywords, must be integrated into blogs,
articles, social posts, and more.
Machine learning (ML), when used correctly, creates better performing blogs and articles. The right
keywords and optimal content density, when deployed across brand-specific web pages, create
value-holding backlinks and higher Google rankings. Improved Content Strategies and Planning AI tools
like NLP and cognitive computing can be used in content strategies, research, and analysis. By using the
data gathered from AI to create hyper-personalization for customers, content marketing teams have the
background work done for them.
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Improved Content
Strategies and Planning
AI tools can be used to perform content strategies by
means of NLP and cognitive computing to aid in
research, analysis, and content strategies.
Hyper-personalization for customers is highly
relevant for content marketing teams looking to
develop audiences with segmented messaging.
Customizing the buyer’s journey with messaging tailored for
a specific audience produces a performance lift.
Drilling deep into each customer’s data with AI can
determine the tonality of language, sentiment, and related
nuances that work together to drive better performance.
To put it simply, interpreting massive reams of data
is impossible without the use of AI.
Collecting data from customers at each touchpoint,
interpreting it in real-time, and making suggestions
that impact customers’ decisions is made possible
with content AI.
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Enhanced Context
with AI
Your content will have a greater impact on customers when it is infused with context. This
means that AI can also be a salesman's best friend if deployed correctly.
Let’s think of some relatable examples: what time of year it is, what time of day it is, what’s
going in the customer’s neck of the woods? Is there AI in Content Marketing local festivals or
traditions being celebrated? Is the customer celebrating a birthday or an anniversary? Is
there a religious holiday coming up? Are they celebrating an anniversary as a preferred
member of your business? Whatever the situation, extra perks and thoughtful
communication goes a long way.
AI can keep these experiences cued up with a special email, text, or social nudge for when
that day arrives. Getting a birthday email from companies is standard practice; however,
getting those emails complete with timely offers, special deals, or invitations to exclusive
membership clubs creates strong business relationships.
Every step marketers can take beyond “Dear
Customer,” is a step closer to defining your brand.
Convincing a one-time customer to become a
lifetime customer is an essential part of a business
strategy.
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The New World
Of AI Part 1
Using AI to create content has been utilized for years by organizations to
speed up processes and reduce human involvement. Let’s take a look at 20
examples of Machine
Learning use cases across several real-world solutions:
The Associated Press: Algorithmic formulas drive marketing mandates which
deliver thousands of stories ranging from the Olympics to other sports.
Bloomberg News: As much as one-third of the content in Bloomberg is the
result of some form of automated technology. A system called Cyborg is used to
help reporters craft business stories about earnings reports each quarter. These
articles are necessary, yet not interesting for reporters to write about. With AI
help, reporters can focus on more engaging projects.
The Guardian: The Australia edition published its first machine-assisted article in
late January 2019. The author of the piece is “ReporterMate”, which typically uses
a template and dataset to create a story. The founder of the Guardian, Nick
Evershed, says human reporter’s jobs “are safe” as ReporterMate mainly creates
repetitious stories.
The Los Angeles Times: Journalist and programmer Ken Schwencke developed
the algorithm known as Quakebot. When an alert comes in from the US
Geological Survey of an earthquake above a certain magnitude, the algorithm
inserts the relevant information into a pre-written template in the LA Times
content management system. The template then gets reviewed and uploaded
for publication by a human editor. Schwencke developed the program after he
was shaken out of bed by an earthquake measuring 4.7 on the Richter Scale.
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Let’s Talk
The New World
Of AI Part 2
Press Association: This UK news generator goes about testing AI differently. A journalist finds
a story to write using publicly available data sets and writes a generic story. AI will then apply a
template to the dataset to create variations of the story for local publications across the
country.
Dreamwriter: TThis programme was created by China’s Tencent and uses speech-to-text
software to turn conference speeches into news articles. The program is able to transcribe as
many as 2,500 speeches per day.
The New York Times: An experimental AI project titled Editor debuted in 2015 using
tags to highlight and improve headlines, main points of the text, and specific things like
people, locations, and dates while serving as a backup fact checker.
Facebook: Using Machine Learning (ML), the social media giant can identify word patterns
that identify and flag content as possible fake news, then eliminate it after review.
Neue Zurcher Zeitung: This German-language newspaper located in Switzerland uses
a flexible paywall with personalization based on dozens of questions to give its readers
only the news they want. Their conversion rate has increased fivefold as a result.
Taco Bell: Who doesn’t want to speak with a talking taco? Taco Bell has introduced Tacobot, a
free addable friend on Slack that lets you order food from the fast-food chain with a bit of witty
humor. As you use Tacobot more, it gathers more insight from your orders and makes
suggestions based on similar users and your previous order history.
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The New World
Of AI Part 3
NBC Universal: The media giant uses AI to create intelligent content and customized clip
generators based on the profile of the person watching. NBC also uses “computer vision”,
which automatically parses the content and context of a video clip.
1-800-Flowers: Using the power of Facebook Messenger chatbots, 1-800-Flowers is able to
gain knowledge of customers from their profile and personalized floral purchases. With the
customer supplying input in the conversation with the chatbot, their online persona is built
and designed to include floral preferences, who the customer is shopping for, important
dates, and so forth. This allows the marketing team to customize future offers tailored to the
customer.
ESPN: When you sign in to ESPN.com, you’re given the opportunity to pick your favorite sports
team to get a closer look at stories related to them. ESPN then taps into its sister
networks—including jersey sellers and ticket resellers—to offer fan exclusives.
Forbes: In January 2019, Forbes introduced Bertie, an AI-driven content management system
(CMS) that recommends article topics to contributors based on their earlier pieces. The AI also
suggests images and headlines for the sentiment of the stories they are currently working on.
Alibaba: The company uses a fashion-Al in stores that use smart tags created to detect when
customers touch a garment. Then, the item can be retargeted to the customer with
customized content later. There are also smart mirrors that show everything about a clothing
item as well as suggesting other items that match or compliment it.
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The New World
Of AI Part 4
Amazon: The company has collected a staggering amount of information on everyone who
has ever used its service including: purchases, every item you’ve browsed, every place you’ve
lived in while ordering something, apps you’ve downloaded, TV shows and movies you’ve
watched, devices you’ve watched those shows on, and everything you’ve ever asked Alexa.
Amazon uses all this knowledge to make frightfully accurate predictions of items you might
like to buy next, items you might need a refill on, and things that may expire and/or wear out
that need a replacement.
UnderArmour: The brand sells athletic merchandise to train and track your fitness
performance via an app with recommended exercises, diet, and nutrition.
Starbucks: This brand creates master marketing tips disguised as fun games that involve
points and big data. AI creates a reward program that allows users to earn points and receive
customized Starbucks offers.
Nike: The shoe Goliath uses in-store IoT to allow customers to design their own shoes via the
collection of personalized data. This data is then translated into personalized
recommendations and communications.
Sephora Virtual Artist: One of the toughest parts of buying makeup and other cosmetics
online is wondering how the product will look on the individual making the purchase. After all,
the model might have a different skin tone or eye color. Sephora’s content marketing allows
users to upload selfies to gauge skin tone and facial features for product recommendations.
Customers use an augmented reality overlay to try any product and can, of course, purchase it
directly from the app.
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More AI Tools &
Solutions Part 1
Hubspot Content Strategy Tool: Hubspot is often referred to as the gold star
for digital marketing. They’re seemingly doing everything they can to make
everyone better off. This platform uses machine learning to help marketers
discover new content ideas through topic clusters based on competition and
relevance. And yes, we also believe it’s the leading sales CRM known to brands.
Conquered: This company uses AI to isolate specific topics that drive
marketing performance and engagement. The platform performs automated
content audits, researches for content topics and ideas, creates content briefs,
and tracks and analyzes performance.
BrightEdge: This brand focuses on SEO and uses AI tools to reveal the intent
behind search queries, provide business forecasts, guide content optimization
and creation, and develop a content strategy that takes into account
competitive strengths.
Crayon: Using AI tools, crayon helps you adopt a cloud-focused strategy and
gives you insight and control over IT investments. They also help accelerate
digital transformation with machine learning and data-driven solutions.
MarketMuse: This brand provides an AI-powered platform that helps with
content research, writing, and industry intelligence. AI collects data on your
content and helps you build models that can improve your content strategy.
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More AI Tools &
Solutions Part 1
Acrolinx: Developed in a top German AI research center, this tool is designed to
improve content at scale for large enterprise brands. Everything from the tone of
voice to branding for specific products is included.
RAD AI, formerly Atomic Reach: An AI-powered content optimization platform, this
technology audits, analyzes, and regenerates your content—starting with the
optimization of evergreen content, then moving onto content creation. The company
was acquired by Rad Intelligence as of 8/01/2021. And yes, Rad Intelligence is RAD AI.
WordLift: A unique take on content strategy, this AI for SEO is specifically designed
for WordPress content marketers so they can write without worrying about search
engine algorithms. The plugin optimises writing and content organization to
improve website findability.
Quill Engage: Using AI-powered data analysis, Quill Engage extracts dada insights
from your Google Analytics and creates insightful reports on your website
performance using contextual interpretations.
Crystal: This brand focuses on performance analysis for digital content reading
statistics from all available channels and allows you to automate campaign
management and publish new content based on what’s working and what isn’t.
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AI in Content
Marketing Conclusion
Using AI to support content marketing is not a passing fad. Unprecedented
breakthroughs have made incredible strides as Machine Learning models continue to
grow. In just a few short years, marketing teams and larger firms have adopted a wide
variety of AI-enabled solutions.
Using AI for the automation of simple tasks and for performing complex analysis of
customer data has become normal. As solutions evolve with content AI, the value to
forward-thinking stakeholders is limitless. We expect even more adoption and
innovation as enterprise brands compete for customer mindshare, and look forward to
new content AI developments.
Firms that believe AI is not a fit should consider this value proposition; reaching your
target audience better than ever before, capturing their undivided attention, and
creating a personal relationship with them. To this point, most C-suites, stakeholders
and marketing leaders are perpetually searching for an edge. We expect even more
adoption and innovation as enterprise brands compete for customer mindshare.
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