The digital revolution doesn't slow down; today, it is all about Artificial Intelligence (AI). New AI tools like ChatGPT have become astronomically popular, and their use is only increasing across multiple industries. For marketing agencies, AI tools offer numerous benefits that can help streamline processes, enhance creativity and productivity and improve strategies. In this blog, we'll discuss five essential tips for effectively integrating the AI tool of your choice and leveraging its capabilities to drive success in your marketing agency.
Understanding AI Tools
AI is a digital program that allows machines to perform certain tasks that typically require people. While they cannot fully replicate human intelligence, with all of its layers, AI tools can still respond to prompts much as humans would.
A few of the ways you may be able to use AI tools in your agency are for content creation, social media management, customer support and strategy planning. Consider, for example, ChatGPT, which can generate language. Its abilities have made it a fantastic tool for marketers working through complicated processes, especially in content creation. It can help generate blogs, social media posts, content outlines and more. However, you can’t just expect AI to be smarter than you are, because, well, it isn’t. It is artificial intelligence, after all. Therefore, you have to learn to use it to your agency’s advantage.
Five Tips for Integrating AI Tools Into Your Marketing Agency
At The Old State, we already use AI tools to help with things like ideating strategy, polishing content and creating cohesion across different marketing channels. But just like every digital agency, we had to become familiar with AI ourselves before implementing it. For this reason, we wanted to provide our five tips to remember when you are starting to integrate AI tools into your agency processes.
1. Start Small
When introducing any AI tool into your agency, avoid trotting it onto the big projects right from the get-go. Learning how each tool works and how humans can influence each to generate better results takes time. Spend time familiarizing yourself with the tool and learning its capabilities before you are ready to launch it with its full capabilities.
2. Fine-Tune the Tool
You can tell AI tools the specific guidelines and parameters of what you want to be done, and they will do it. However, this requires fine tuning by the user to better ensure that the tool generates the result you want.
Consider a prompt that we gave ChatGPT and the results it generated:
TOS:
Write two sentences about a dog catching a frisbee. One sentence should use the passive voice. The other sentence should use the active voice.
ChatGPT:
Passive voice: The frisbee was caught by the dog with impressive agility and precision.
Active voice: The dog caught the frisbee with impressive agility and precision.
Notice that in our prompt, we told the AI tool what we wanted and how we wanted it. The more specific the information you give the AI tool, the better it will be able to generate what you need. For example, if you know that your client wants to write a blog about dogs and frisbees and that they want to avoid the passive voice, then you will want to include those details in your AI prompts. Doing so can enhance the accuracy and relevance of AI-generated content.
3. Monitor and Review Outputs
Although AI tools like ChatGPT are helpful, they do have limitations. Because they lack critical thinking skills, AI tools can make factual errors or other mistakes within a piece of content, even if you have provided extensive information. Additionally, issues like bias, context understanding, and content quality are still things that AI might miss, but that humans need to address. To ensure that the results align with your agency's objectives, review every piece of AI-generated content to catch any potential errors or inconsistencies the tools may have missed.
4. Don't Eliminate the Human Touch
AI language tools cannot act alone; they must be prompted by humans. So, in other words, the human touch is still very much critical to the process of using AI, and AI tools should not be considered as catch-all solutions for every agency need.
Beyond the process of actually generating content and providing ideas, AI tools don't know your brand, your clients or their strategies the same way that you do. Therefore, you should use AI tools in conjunction with input from your team to creatively implement the processes that will generate more effective marketing results. And don’t forget, it is just as important to identify cases where AI might not be the best fit for a task as it is to identify when to use it. Doing so allows your team to leverage human expertise where it's most effective.
5. Ensure Ethical Usage
AI tools provide reliable security and respect users' data privacy. For example, ChatGPT cannot interact with users directly or access personal data. Still, like with any digital tool, be careful when sharing private data through AI. You should always discuss your use of AI with your clients and establish any parameters for inputting their information into an AI tool. This transparency can help foster a better level of trust and credibility in the agency-client relationship.
Embrace AI and Unlock Potential in Your Marketing Agency
Incorporating AI tools like ChatGPT into your marketing agency can revolutionize your processes and amplify your creativity. By starting small, collaborating effectively, and maintaining ethical practices, you can unlock the ability of AI to help improve your marketing strategies in ways that will pay off for your clients. Embrace AI as a valuable tool, and your marketing agency will thrive in this exciting era of technological advancement.
About The Old State
The Old State is a Dallas-based full-service digital solutions agency focusing on web design and optimization, paid media and inbound marketing. We believe in helping clients create digital strategies that lead to real success through listening, research, and adaptability. Our process ensures that we offer solutions that align with clients' visions and business goals. For more information, contact info@theoldstate.com.