AI is The Future: How to Shift Your Thinking To Take Advantage

Isn’t it crazy how fast the world is changing and evolving? Think about it… 

Elon Musk is determined to have humans live on Mars. Amazon keeps rolling out robotic technology to run their massive business and uses Alexa for so many gadgets in your home. Not to mention Apple has Siri doing all kinds of tasks for you in your daily routine. 

Artificial intelligence literally affects almost every part of our lives, whether we realize it or not. While it’s not like it does in the movies, it’s happening behind the scenes with brands you know and love. From a marketer’s perspective, it’s truly an amazing time to be alive as innovation and technology continue to advance like never before. 

So what does this have to do with running your business? 

In one word: everything.

The businesses that continue to take advantage of AI and other trends will be the ones that continue to grow and scale in 2021 and beyond. The businesses who test, experiment, and aren’t scared of change are the ones who will thrive.

At EasyWebinar, we’re the same way; consistently testing, tweaking, and finding new ways to deliver the best software to make your life easier. We’re committed to helping you impact your audience so that you can achieve maximum impact and income. As Zig Ziglar said, “You will get all you want in life, if you help enough others people get what they want.” 

One way to help more people and serve your audience is with automation and AI. In today’s post, I want to share with you more about the impact of artificial intelligence on marketing and suggest a few strategies to implement into your business. 

Artificial Intelligence Meets Marketing 

As I mentioned in a January blog post, digital marketing is changing a lot in 2021! 

While a lot of people fear change, especially if it threatens part of their business (and livelihood), change can be a good thing. As an entrepreneur, long-term success is all about adapting and shifting as trends and consumer behaviors evolve. 

AI has already changed the world of marketing, even if most consumers don’t realize it. That’s why brands like Amazon, Google, Netflix and more have been using AI to drive their marketing strategy for years. 

They understand that they can use these tools to better understand their customers, and thus, provide a better experience. Plus, higher customer retention and likely more revenue as well. 

Here are some examples of big brands already using AI according to Social Media Strategies Summit Blog: 

• Starbucks uses predictive analytics for personalized recommendations. 
• Chase Bank uses AI firm Persado to create unique website and app copy for customers. 
• Nike used AI in 2017 to help customers design custom sneakers in store, which lead to more details and insights about their audience. 

And a lot more top brands! But even if you’re a solopreneur or have a small team, you can start using AI as well. 

How to Use Artificial Intelligence in Your Business 

Here are some ways that AI is already being used to improve content and marketing strategies. Even if all of these don’t directly apply to your business, start to think about how they could in the near future. 

Please note, I’m not asking you to shift your business model or make drastic changes overnight. Instead, I want to plant this AI seed sooner rather than later, so that you can begin to adopt the mindset for success. 

Early adopters are always rewarded! Here are five ways to use AI in your business moving forward.

1. Chatbots 

Chances are you use chatbots already a lot as a customer. Heck, just a few days ago I had an issue with a return on Amazon and it all got corrected with chatbots in a few minutes… no live chat or phone call with a rep was needed. This helped me save time and get a solution fast which is why Amazon has developed a cult like following. 

Chatbots aren’t just for big business though. Chances are you could use chatbots in your business starting today too. Instead of replying and answering the same email or having a VA do certain things in your business, chatbots could help big time. 

One low price chatbot that a lot of existing EasyWebinar users use is ManyChat or BoldChat. They combine Facebook Messenger with SMS text to help grow their business. For webinars, a chatbot can help increase your webinar registration rate and help increase webinar attendance too.  

Not to mention, they can help you get more people to watch your content on social media and engage with your organic content as well. This can help your brand with algorithms on social media giants and Google for SEO. 

Chatbots can help you:

• Drive sales and create customized experiences for each user.
• Get more leads and sales with higher open rates than email marketing. 
• Build meaningful relationships with your customers thanks to a custom chatbot workflow. 

You can build a bot in a few minutes and start to get more effectiveness out of tools that you already use too. This tool is especially useful if you’re an e-commerce business who needs more sales to offset thin margins. 

In the future, chatbots might even play a pivotal role in sales, prospecting and more. If you’re already using them, great job… if not, start thinking about how you could soon to free up your time on small tasks. 

2. Customized Emails 

If you already have an email list,  chances are you know the importance of segmenting your list. Since people are likely to join your list by a variety of free and paid strategies, it’s important that each one gets the right message at the right time. 

For example, if you have two types of people as your ICA (ideal client avatar), it’s important that each one has their own unique messaging. Otherwise, if you have one broad message for both, you’ll probably see lower open and click-through rates with your emails. 

In the future, expect AI to play a pivotal role in custom email marketing. According to the Content Marketing Institute, a lot of big brands are already taking advantage of this. Here’s how…

“Dynamic Yield helps the likes of Under Armour, Sephora, and Urban Outfitters build actionable customer segments by using an advanced machine-learning engine. AI algorithms create customer personas based on billions of data points, including:

• Geo-specific events
• On-site interactions
• Referral source
• Psychographic factors
• Purchase behaviors
• Past communication”

In the meantime, you can start using segmentation and other tracking tools to learn more about your customers starting today. Remember the more you understand your audience, paired with the right messaging, will have a huge impact on your conversion rates. 

3. Dynamic Pricing

If you’re selling physical products, supply and demand is a big part of determining your price. With AI, you can start to use personalization pricing instead of only offering a flat rate. 

Companies like Lyft and Uber are already doing this during peak times when more people want rides. As more and more companies offer dynamic pricing, the more normal it is for the everyday shopper.

But it’s not just good for businesses. Consumers can also benefit from this as well when demand isn’t as high (and prices are lower). Another win-win scenario thanks to AI! 

4. Optimized Ad Copy

Success in business is all about getting the right message at the right time.

If you’re a digital entrepreneur, that means highly targeted ads and content that speaks to your audience. You want them to think, “How are they in my head.” The more that you can speak to their pain and help move them from pain to pleasure, the more customers you’ll likely work with. 

A great way to do that is with paid advertising using Facebook and Google Ads. But instead of always hiring a copywriter (or having a strong cup of coffee and forcing yourself to write them), what if a machine could do it for you? Well, it’s already happening at some level and you might have even been targeted with machine driven ads. 

Soon, I expect this to be much more accessible for the everyday entrepreneur and not just billion dollar brands. As consumers get bombarded with more and more ads, it’s vital that you have the right targeting and message. 

With AI-optimized ad copy you need to be educated and inventive with your marketing more than ever before.

Related: iOS 14 Update – Everything You Need to Know 

5. Content Creation

Finally, AI will play a pivotal role in content creation in the future.

For a lot of entrepreneurs and businesses, this is a huge time commitment. But moving forward, I expect AI to make this process that much easier. Plus, it’ll likely make the content much more engaging and effective, so no content goes unread/watched or listened to.

While it’ll be interesting to see how this pans out, here are some strategies to optimize your content creation starting today:

• Study your email marketing rates. Find the top performing emails with high open rates and CTR’s to learn what your people engage with. Then, create more similar content or headlines to rinse and repeat what’s working. 

• Know your numbers. If you put out content weekly (on a podcast, blog, YouTube, etc.), study your metrics to learn what performs the best. Similarly, if you put out several types of content, spend the most time on the platform that yields the highest return. 

The Future of AI and Marketing in 2021 and Beyond

As you can tell, AI will have a big impact on business in 2021 and beyond. 

AI allows business owners and marketers to create truly unique messages for each person. The sooner you can start shifting your mindset and realize how great of an opportunity this is moving forward, the more you will succeed. While a lot of business owners will try to fight making big changes, I want you to think big and start to look at change as a positive. 

Instead of getting worried or anxious about changes, learn to love change. I promise the sooner you do, the less stress you will have (and probably more success too). 

Remember though, while AI is evolving at rapid paces, it won’t happen overnight. Small changes will continue to take place over the next few years and I suggest getting on board sooner, rather than later. 

As long as you keep testing and tweaking your business to serve your people, you’ll withstand almost any changes. At the end of the day, it’s all about getting the right message to your audience at the right time. Paired with service + integrity, you’ll be able to stand out and grow your business even in the most crowded niches. 

Next Steps

Ready to start automating more parts of your business?

Here are three powerful ways that you can use EasyWebinar to automate more of your business.

• Start Running Automated Webinars: If you want to impact more people, get your offer in front of more consumers! Automated webinars are a great way to do that as you’ll capture their email addresses and share with them helpful content. If you choose to pitch at the end you can also cover your ad spend… Talk about a win-win! Click here to read our ultimate guide on automated webinars. 

• Optimize Existing Automated Webinars: After reviewing hundreds of thousands of automated webinars in almost every niche, we know what works (and what doesn’t). Make sure to read our best practices and biggest pitfalls to avoid with evergreen webinars. Implement a few of these tips to create higher performing automated events. Click here to read the full post. 

• Use Our Integrations: If you didn’t know, EasyWebinar integrates with tons of other tools to make your life easier. From syncing with your email software to payment processors and everything in between with Zapier, we make it easy for you to integrate everything. Click here to read our full list of EasyWebinar integrations to make sure you aren’t missing out on any. 

Not an EasyWebinar customer yet? 

No worries, you can get started with our 14-day FREE trial right now. No obligations and you get two weeks to test our amazing software for live and automated webinars. 

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