What can B2B marketers do to make their content stand out in a sea of overwhelming amounts of information?
In a digital landscape dominated by AI tools like ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, and Bing, marketers often find themselves caught in a whirlwind of mixed feelings and ambivalent expectations.
The appeal of AI is undeniable; recent statistics reveal that around 46% of marketers assign the handling of their content calendar to a single person or group. The idea of AI streamlining and enhancing content generation is not only attractive but also a business-savvy decision in line with everything the corporate world has been telling you about technology and automation for the past decade.
It’s easy to see how AI can immediately boost your productivity when it comes to content generation, but how can you apply this to make sure your brand’s content reaches the right audience? Despite its limitations, machine learning has also revolutionized how people search for information. AI content generators, like ChatGPT, have gained popularity among users seeking in-depth answers without having to click through multiple pages. As marketers, we believe this is actually the most valuable aspect of AI when it comes to researching and developing new content.
So, how can B2B marketers navigate this AI-dominated landscape and ensure their content is discovered by their target audience? It begins with understanding the limitations of AI and formulating a strategy around them.
Understanding the Shortcomings of AI
AI makes a lot more mistakes than people may initially believe. It’s easy to be wowed by ChatGPT’s effectiveness at putting together blurbs, rewriting content, and plotting out SEO strategies based on a single keyword. Trusting everything the tool puts out at face value, however, can quickly put you in a position where you may be liable for misinformation, misquoting, and in the worst cases, plagiarism.
If you understand these limitations, then you know what to look out for, and you can make sure that you deliver original, truthful, and high-quality content regardless of whether you used AI tools to create it or not. Remember these three main shortcomings of AI:
- AI’s Struggles with User Intent: while AI has made significant strides in providing personalized content to readers, comprehending user intent remains a complex challenge. For instance, a user searching for “jaguars” might be looking for information on the animal, the Jacksonville football team, or the UK car manufacturer. AI, however, doesn’t clarify and often requires the user to make their search more specific.
- AI’s Difficulty with Nuance: AI also grapples with capturing the subtleties of communication. It often presents intricate topics in a dichotomous way. Linguists have pointed out that machine learning programs often lack the ability to describe, predict, and consider possibilities outside of their learned data, thereby missing out on nuance.
- The Propagation of Misinformation and Bias by AI: AI tools like ChatGPT and Bard cannot distinguish between factual and false information. They can, therefore, inadvertently disseminate misinformation. Moreover, as these tools learn from human-provided data, they can perpetuate biases present in their training datasets. Even if you provide AI with an information source, it cannot verify if the information there is accurate or not; source validation is something you must take care of personally.
Building a Content Discovery Strategy with AI
Despite these challenges, B2B marketers can create effective content discovery strategies by considering the following steps:
- Enhance Content Discovery In an era where algorithms significantly shape user experience, content must be discoverable. Using algorithm-friendly formats like video and engaging visuals can increase visibility on platforms like TikTok and Google Discover. Encourage user interaction by incorporating calls to action and using appropriate tags to match user intent.
- Focus on Your Audience Analyzing data to understand where your audience spends time online and where they search for information can be invaluable. Use insights from Google Analytics, CRM data, and your sales team to drive your strategy and focus on channels that generate leads.
- Maintain Journalistic Integrity In an AI world where misinformation can easily spread, earning readers’ trust is crucial. Support claims with research, cite credible sources, provide comprehensive coverage of complex topics, and include publication dates to enhance credibility.
- Repurpose Content With AI-generated content saturating the internet, marketers need to diversify their content forms. Consider repurposing long-form content into various formats, such as transforming podcasts into YouTube Shorts, blog posts into newsletters, or research findings into social media posts.
- Stay Authentic to Your Brand In a sea of similar content, your brand’s unique voice can set you apart. Avoid sounding robotic or mimicking your competition. Focus on topics that resonate with your customers and present them in a way that aligns with your brand.
In conclusion, while AI tools may struggle with understanding user intent, communicating nuance, distinguishing between truth and falsehood, and checking biases, they still offer considerable potential for marketers navigating the digital landscape.
Your brand’s uniqueness and authenticity, coupled with a sound understanding of your audience, can help you stand out in the vast content marketplace. Consistency in your online presence will make you recognizable among the waves of repetitive content.
B2B marketers need to realize that leveraging AI isn’t about replacing human creativity and insight; rather, it’s about combining the strengths of human intelligence and AI to deliver meaningful, engaging, and valuable content to their audience.
By understanding the limitations of AI and leveraging its strengths, marketers can effectively use AI for content discovery in a time of excessive content availability, thereby building trust and adding value to their audience’s experience. This balanced approach to AI will not only help your brand to shine but will also ensure that you stay afloat and thrive in the turbulent sea of digital marketing.
