Everyone has heard of Chat GPT. But how many of us truly know how to take advantage of it and its AI counterparts?

As Artificial intelligence continues to be waved around as the next big thing it is hard to escape hearing about the host new technology coming on the scene and its apparent game-changing abilities.

But for many without the time or technical knowledge it is easy to be overwhelmed by the ever-growing list of tools at your disposal or simply not know where to begin in utilising AI to your benefit.

This poses the question, how do we use creative AI effectively and what can it truly do to benefit us in a marketing capacity?

As it turns out, it can do a lot to help us, but only if you help it!

Content Generation and Brainstorming

The hardest part of creating is often knowing where to begin. All too often blank page syndrome kicks in at the start of the creative process and we spend time labouring to get the gears spinning before we even put pen to paper. AI is the ideal tool to help spark your creativity and provide a plethora of ideas to kickstart your project.

The infamous Chat GPT and its lesser-known Google counterpart Gemini (formerly Bard) are ideal tools to support content creation. Simply providing the software with a brief prompt will return content to get you started in seconds!

The quality of content returned is dependent upon the amount of detail you provide in your prompts, so make sure to give it as much information as you can or use follow-up prompts to mould the content to what you are looking for. By telling it to act in a certain way, such as asking it to write as a marketing copywriter, a tabloid journalist or even to respond in rhyme the programme will tailor its response to your needs, giving you an impressively adaptable tool! You can also ask for a specific length of response and specify who the content is for so that it is shaped to your audience, for example, writing for sailing enthusiasts or a group of school children so that it will use the appropriate language that will fit.

Tools you may already be using such as Canva and Hootsuite also now have built-in AI functionality which can help with creative writing, enabling you to shape your message in the correct tone and language for your audience and offer creative input to fill that page!

Whilst AI tools are great for ideation and shaping content, they shouldn’t be used in isolation to create content (or at least not without a thorough check-over!). It is important to remember that all of these tools are only as effective as the data they are using and mistakes can always occur.

AI-Powered Visuals & Design

Another use of AI is to create custom visuals tailored to your specific needs. By simply inputting prompts describing what you are looking for, in a matter of seconds, you can have a series of unique visuals at your disposal. 

Again, the more details you can provide as to what you’re looking for the more focussed the image will be to your needs. As well as content, the visuals can also be stylistically adjusted to your needs by prompting the AI to create in a specific style such as animated, photorealistic or even impressionist!

Canva offers free image creation through its ‘magic media’ in-platform app (as seen in our title image!) while Midjourney and Dall-E (from Open AI, the team behind Chat GPT) are currently seen as industry leaders and offer this service through a paid subscription.

AI can also be used to edit your images, allowing you to shape them to your needs and create standout graphics in seconds. Canva and Adobe Firefly (part of Photoshop) have generative fill features that allow you to add or remove parts of your image, from mixing up your image background to changing what people are wearing, this is a powerful tool that can quickly give your visuals a complete makeover.

You can also use AI to create video content by providing text prompts (Lumen5), static images (Runway) or other video content (HeyGen), creating content in no time. While this won’t always create a truly professional video currently it allows you to create effective messaging and unique content within a few clicks and, with OpenAI’s Sora soon to be on the market the potential of AI video content is set to grow exponentially.

With all these creative uses for AI that can help to bring your project to life, it is also important to be aware of biases within the data that it is using to generate content. For example, when asking for an image of a group of scientists the programme may return a male-dominated group, over a certain age and with limited diversity. This can be amended by giving specific details in prompts but it holds as an important point to give all work an objective look and consider its use when creating. 

Marketing Strategy & Analysis

Outwith the creative side of content production, artificial intelligence can also support marketing efforts through research, analysis and planning.

Tools such as Chat GPT and Gemini are ideal for this purpose and can provide useful insight and guiding support for marketing strategy. Working as a personal assistant these programmes can quickly answer explain and summarise information, analyse data and provide key business insights through market research, creating customer personas and environmental analysis.

From a marketing perspective, these tools can also help create content calendars, develop internal documents such as brand guidelines, and plan strategically whilst tailoring content to your customer's needs.

With all this potential at your fingertips, the power of Artificial Intelligence is simply down to the quality of information you provide.

The Future is AI?

Despite what Hollywood might have you believe, collaboration not takeover is the future. Take it from the tech itself-

‘Remember, AI isn't here to take over your marketing department (yet!). It's a powerful tool that can augment your human creativity and strategic thinking. Use AI to streamline tasks, gain deeper customer insights, and personalize your marketing efforts.’

Whilst Artificial intelligence provides an excellent creative aid, saving precious time and resources, it should always be utilised alongside and not instead of the human-centric approach to achieve the best results. Through utilising and working with the tech we can create tailored and bespoke marketing that efficiently gets our message out in a timely and impactful fashion.

Looking for a more personal approach to marketing? Get in touch today! Looking for a more personal approach to marketing? Get in touch today!