The AI Playbook: A practical guide to AI for marketers
Go from generalist to guru with your AI knowledge, taking your marketing efforts to the next (superhuman) level - your team will thank you, your customers will love you, and your competitors won't know what hit 'em.
Introduction
Artificial intelligence has sparked a revolution in marketing, reshaping how we connect with our audiences and drive results. In fact, it lowkey changed everything about it.
And here's a secret: Only the best marketers will tap into the full potential of it.
From content creation to customer insights, AI empowers us to do more with less, acting as a tireless (literally, can we get some of that energy?) assistant that eliminates repetitive tasks and frees us to focus on creative, high-value work that makes the difference to your customer experience.
Buckle up, you're about to learn how to best implement AI into your marketing strategy, without the bot getting the better of you or your brand.
What you'll learn:
- The true impact of AI for marketer and customer experience
- What it takes to become an AI guru and get a leg up on competitors
- How we're helping marketers use AI for killer content
- Questions to ask to measure your organization's AI maturity
- How to efficiently implement AI with a 30-60-90 day action plan
Understanding AI in marketing
While many of us initially feared that AI was about to steal our jobs, the reality is way more exciting.
AI isn’t replacing marketers, it’s amplifying our capabilities. By integrating AI into our workflows and tech stacks, we’re unlocking unprecedented efficiency and effectiveness.
But to create something truly magical in marketing, you’ve got to consider two sides to the equation:
- Your marketers: How we can work more efficiently
- Your customers: How we can optimize customer engagement
Sure, AI can make your experience as a marketer a lot easier, allowing you to spend more time on the fun, creative stuff – but it can really benefit your customers too, and that should be important to anyone who wants to succeed in marketing.
If your customers aren’t at the forefront of your marketing strategies – buying behaviors, what they value, their pain points that you want to solve – your content is not going to hit, you're not going to WOW them, and you’re not going to see results.
It’s this depth of understanding about your target audience that allows for more personalization in your content... and your AI output.
The more research and data you have about your customers, the more practical and productive your AI usage will be, and the more likely it will inspire your creativity and get your job done (both quicker and more efficiently).
The better the input = the better the output
And don't you forget it
Practical applications of AI in marketing
Sure, AI can be seen (and used) as a member of the team who is happy to do the mindless, repetitive, boring, hit-your-head-against-the-desk kind of tasks. But there’s more to this robotic teammate, and it all rides on your organization’s AI maturity.
A few small steps to apply AI in a meaningful way = one giant leap for your MX and CX.
3 simple ways AI helps the marketer experience
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Use generative AI
Create basic content (eg. text, images, music) using standard prompts and open source LLM (large language model)
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Automate tasks
Expand the functions of AI beyond just "create" and into other actions such as recommendations (eg. actions to take) and analysis (eg. insights)
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Create brand-specific content at scale
Increase the quality of output by giving AI more specific content (eg. your brand data, industry benchmarking, etc.)
3 simple ways AI helps the customer experience
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Test variations
Generate additional headlines for every experiment and create more effective, winning tests
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Auto-suggest segments
Use AI to help define audiences using existing data (eg. "Here is an audience of high-spending customers with low engagement")
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Power 1-to-1 personalization
Allow AI to take user-level attributes into account (in real-time) and make decisions to personalize individual experiences
Yep, that’s right. AI can do — and will do — so much more than “write a blog”. It can analyze data; it can complete a task (or even anticipate a series of tasks); it can use that aforementioned data to personalize its output. It's all about getting the most out of your AI to give your marketing that superhuman edge.
📍 Next stop: Specialized AI agents, at your disposal.
AI agents: Everything you need to know
AI agents use context and instructions provided by you, the user, to perform a whole range of tasks, no humans necessary. The whole concept of AI agents is about to change the way you use AI and the way you do your marketing... for the better.
By incorporating AI agents into your marketing strategy, you'll see:
- Increased efficiency
- More productivity
- Enhanced creativity
- Data-driven insights
How? Because AI agents take on the (painfully) mundane tasks that you don't want to, offer new ideas and insights that align with your brand guidelines, and deliver quick data analysis whether it's campaign results or other performance metrics you want to dive into. Meanwhile, you won't break a sweat.
Now, we know what you're asking: how do you get your hands on them? Well, for one, AI agents are manifested via Opal, your AI sidekick across Optimizely's product suite.
Optimizely + AI
Given that AI and AI agents have revolutionized marketing, and marketing is *kinda* our thing, it felt natural – no, essential – that we not only talked the talk, but walked the walk.
We use it
We’re open about using it
We’re always keeping up to date with it
We created Optimizely Opal for customers to make the most of it
So, on that note: say hello to Opal – here to improve both marketer and customer experience.
How? Opal is embedded across our entire suite of products – also known as Optimizely One. See it as your smart AI assistant who can be by your (screen’s) side whenever you need it in the marketing lifecycle.