Technology is evolving every year and, increasingly, computers and machines are mimicking behaviours and thinking associated with the human mind. Today, AI is being used to draw pictures, write music, talk to people and even create sitcoms – and a newly released bot has left many questioning how far automation can go.

Here, we explore the latest development in the technology industry and look at the impact it’s having on digital marketing.

What is ChatGPT?

In November 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT – a sophisticated natural language processing system. In short, it’s an AI chatbot that can create text and stimulate real conversations as well as translate copy. Not just that, but ChatGPT can be used to write essays, summarise large text, create code and much more.

It’s quick too. Users simply upload their request, click a button and are provided with the answer or result in a matter of minutes. This is just one reason why many businesses – including those in the digital marketing and SEO sphere – have begun to use ChatGPT since its release. Not to mention, it offers cheaper overheads.

To fully understand ChatGPT, its future and its functionality, it’s important to look at its history. ChatGPT was launched by OpenAI, which was founded by Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and other well-known tech names. They wanted to combat AI’s centralisation by making research and patents public knowledge. Their aim was to develop AI so that humanity as a whole could benefit. In 2019, OpenAI became a capped-profit organisation meaning some profits would go to the investors and the rest would go towards non-for-profit work.

Microsoft then invested $1 billion into the organisation and OpenAI announced it was licensing its tech to Microsoft exclusively. This means that Microsoft could use ChatGPT to power its search engines in the future. In response to this, Google has been looking at ways to combat the risk of ChatGPT and is working on a strategy to boost its own AI. What’s more, Microsoft has announced it will be investing $10 billion into OpenAI giving it a 75% share.

How has ChatGPT Changed Digital Marketing?

Artificial intelligence is a specific type of technology that allows computers and machines to perform a certain function based on human behaviours. This includes machines having the ability to see, and computers being able to understand and translate communications, analyse data and make recommendations.

With this in mind, it’s no surprise that AI has changed the way people and businesses market online. Here are some of the most common ways that AI is changing online digital marketing.

Real-time predictions – Understanding trends and predicting customer behaviour is a huge challenge for businesses. But, AI is able to react to recent events and global news, capture human behaviour, understand human interest and intent, and then predict what’s going to happen. This can be very useful when companies are testing marketing campaigns.
Personalisation – In a saturated market, brands can stand out by offering personalised experiences to their customers, and AI is at the heart of this. For example, AI can be used to gain audience insights about how a campaign or piece of content is being engaged with. Armed with these results, businesses can tweak future campaigns and content based on what their audience wants. This not only increases engagement but also brand awareness, web traffic and sales.
Advanced audience analytics – With AI doing the hard work for you and analysing customer data, it makes it easier for businesses to understand the data they do have. This includes patterns in purchasing behaviours and customer preferences as well as browsing behaviour. This information can all be essential for the success of your digital or email marketing campaigns, the growth of your business and also how you identify new target audiences.

The Benefits of ChatGPT

ChatGPT might be the latest addition to the AI world but it’s already offering a number of benefits for individuals and businesses. This includes:

Improved efficiency – ChatGPT can deal with multiple customer interactions, quickly and efficiently, and doesn’t require a team of human advisors. What’s more, answers are often provided at a much quicker pace compared to a human advisor. With ChatGPT in place, your in-person team can focus on other business-critical tasks too.
Personalisation – Another benefit of ChatGPT is that it can generate personalised recommendations based on customer purchase history, web browsing and preferences. What’s more, ChatGPT can also be used to recommend additional products and services – which could not only boost your bottom line but help your business to stand out.
Better customer support – AI is now being used in online chatbots to help businesses to provide an enhanced customer experience. Instead of a website visitor using the chat function to speak to humans, and having to wait for a human advisor to become free, AI and chatbots are being used for more conversational experiences, quickly.
Creativity – ChatGPT can also be used to create marketing materials like product descriptions, emails, social media marketing and attention-grabbing headers. What’s more, there’s no risk of writer’s block! You can even ask ChatGPT to create content for a specific target audience or keyword.
Better lead nurturing – Nurturing leads is an essential task in business but it can be time-consuming. ChatGPT not only takes care of this but can enhance the customer experience. It remembers what customers said, can combat any issues quickly, and can also cross-sell and upsell key business products and services.
Cost-savings – Implementing AI and technology into your digital marketing can not only save time but money too. After all, with your team’s time freed up, they can focus on more important tasks and you won’t need to hire additional heads for night shifts or busy seasons.
Stronger market position – ChatGPT isn’t restricted by language or border barriers which means it can help your business to grow and tap into new markets. Whether you want to translate product descriptions or offer customer support in a new country, ChatGPT can do it.

ChatGPT vs. Traditional Marketing Methods

The truth is, ChatGPT can be very useful when it comes to marketing. The tool can specialise and focus on specific industries, topics, audiences or even keywords meaning you can consistently create engaging content, at a much quicker speed compared to your team of human copywriters.

ChatGPT can recognise a brand tone and style too so you don’t need to worry about any content appearing as if it hasn’t been written by one of your team, or spend time training new staff on your brand tone of voice.

There are, of course, benefits to using human copywriters though. At the end of the day, ChatGPT is powered by machine learning and the human ability to write and its accuracy really can’t be replicated. ChatGPT doesn’t always get it right, whereas human copywriters have the ability to spend hours researching and fact-checking.

Some answers provided by ChatGPT are not accurate or are written so expertly that many users can’t get to grips with them. This may not be helpful to your brand perception and could actually do more harm than good.

When we consider local SEO, again, ChatGPT might be useful for generating high-quality and specific content and it can help to identify other potential keywords that your company should be tapping into – but it can only help with the content side of SEO. More specifically, it doesn’t account for onsite optimisation, link building and domain credibility which is why it’s important to have a wider digital marketing strategy that’s led by experts.

The Future of ChatGPT and Digital Marketing

The rise of ChatGPT has resulted in many wondering whether employment will be affected – especially in the digital marketing, digital advertising and content creation industries. With increased investment into AI and its future developments, it’s clear that we’re only just at the beginning of the journey too.

Despite this, one thing is clear: ChatGPT can be used by businesses in a variety of ways. It can generate consistent content and human-like answers. But there are still limitations. Instead of using ChatGPT to replace manual tasks, it should be used to augment and enhance them. When used correctly, technology like this could even free up your time and allow internal teams to focus on other tasks that require more creativity and thinking.

Even more important is that those businesses that do use ChatGPT should not use it to replace their digital marketing efforts but instead incorporate it as a small part of the process. If you want to discuss ChatGPT and how it can assist with your marketing, get in touch with us. We provide many other services besides marketing including web design, lead generation and SEO services to help grow your business.

External sources:

https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt

Posted on Monday, February 6th, 2023 in Digital Marketing.