AI, shaping the future of your inbound strategy?

Click by click, AI develops more. Machine learning progresses more every time we hit 'enter' into our AI software.

This is certainly sparking some interesting topics circling the marketing sphere.

The past couple of years have seen a rise in this. Our feeds are full of vague, scaremongering headlines like 'Is AI taking over?'

Or 'Experts say 8 out of 10 jobs to be taken over by AI...is YOUR job at risk?'

The truth is, no one's job is at risk.

AI is just shaping the way we live. Where we might have initially leaned back with hesitancy, content creators, business owners and marketing managers are unravelling its goldmine of productive potential.

We can work with AI to improve our workflows in all industries, and this very much counts for inbound marketing.

AI is helping inbound marketing become hyper-personalised

According to Mailchimp,

"88% of marketers believe their organisation must increase its use of automation and AI to meet customer expectations and stay competitive."

The magic of inbound marketing lies in knowing your customer inside and out and being able to generate top-notch, personalised content.

But where does it sit within your inbound strategy?

Anywhere it can. It knows our goals, customers, and timelines.

AI is integrated into your:

• Timelines, calendars and workflows
• Content creation (copy and short-form video)
• Tracking 
• Chat robots and conversational marketing
• Social media

AI is quick, and it's a power tool for productivity. But we operate the switch, and we help it learn through exposure.

How does it influence the future of your marketing?

The more we use it, the more it knows about our inputs, our customers and our goals. Machine learning is a self-correcting mechanism that teaches itself what your goals are.

Although we can't generate a crystal ball that shows us what the next chapter of AI looks like, we do know that our inbound strategies can become more streamlined and individualised.

By being more hyper-personalised, this AI technology will create higher quality individualised content for our customers.

AI integration into calendars, timelines and workflows

AI integration can help you plan out your timelines and workflows better, and more efficiently. With AI integration, you can tidy up your schedule, and maximise your time - much like a digital PA.

You can produce more in less time, which allows more time for innovating new ideas and brainstorming new tactics.

Content generation becomes even more personalised

It's no secret that AI is shaping the way we produce content. It shaves off hours of time and can do the ground work for us. This helps you bash out lots of great content in a short space of time, overall buying us more content.

Social media updates can appear in milliseconds, and binge-worthy TikToks can be made in a matter of minutes.

AI allows the most amateur of video content creators to make AI generated content. This means more personalised, humanised or 'behind the scenes' content that will really personalise your brand.

This seeps into every stage of the customer journey. Each customer is different, and AI knows these differences. It knows where they are in their journey, what their pain points are, and what problems your product could fix.

Imagine being able to target individualised pieces for a specific buyer persona, addressing their unique needs and interests, at exactly the right moment?

Behind the scenes tracking will even know the right time of day to email your marketing campaigns, and you won't have to lift a finger.

This level of targeting can lead to higher engagement rates and stronger customer relationships.

This hyper personalisation makes your content unique but true to your buyer persona's needs, so it will attract more quality leads.

Conversational marketing will be more human

Chatbots are the new salespeople. Chatbots are a crucial point of the inbound journey, as they offer round-the-clock customer service.

With machine learning, we're expecting to see more 'here's how we'll fix your specific issue' and less 'sorry, please see our FAQs for help.'

This is a real game-changer for the inbound journey, as humanlike chatbot conversations can nurture customer relationships while we're asleep.

Better quality data-driven strategies

If you've got a large database of customers, AI knows exactly where they are within the inbound journey, and what each of them need.

You can tailor your tracking to make informed marketing decisions.

It will get to know your leads behaviour, meaning you can overview your analytics and make those important 'going forward' moves. AI does the digging and the suggesting, you move the tactics ahead.

As it continues to grow and develop, AI can even help us with these tactics. Predictive analytics can predict what your customer is going to do before they've even opened your marketing email.

This kind of predictive AI can be implemented at every stage of the journey.

The synergy between human marketers and AI will define the next era of marketing

When AI handles routine tasks, you can focus on strategic initiatives. Inbound is still all about the human touch. It's all about how we fuse our own marketing efforts with AI, in order to generate better, personalised inbound marketing.

The real nitty gritty of nurturing quality leads requires meaningful connection.

Plus, it can't understand the essence of your brand. It doesn't have the emotional capacity to define the direction or values, only human marketers can do this, for now.

Automation and AI are not just trends; they're integral parts of modern marketing strategies. Embracing these tools can lead to more better content, efficient timelines, and more time for us to focus on the human tasks - creating, strategy, and connection.

This leaves the robotic stuff to the robots, and the human stuff to your employees.

Your CRM is the hub of your AI

Your CRM is where the magic happens. It's the octopus of marketing, and its ability to automate all of your marketing tasks helps you always stay one step ahead. It's the watering hole, where all your AI forces meet up to discuss the next move on the inbound journey.

A CRM interconnects your sales and marketing streams into one huge hub.

Speaking of hubs...

If you're looking for a nifty new CRM that automates almost everything, we highly recommend HubSpot. It's a leading CRM platform that manages all your client/customer relations, that can do just about anything you wire it up to do.

It generates a highly personalised stream of targeted marketing, to help your customers feel like VIPs. It nurtures quality leads, so that you can be there for your customers every step of the inbound journey.

It can't quite deliver cups of tea to our desks just yet, but who knows what's in store for the next chapter of AI?