3 Ways to Create a Powerful Content Strategy with AI

OpenAI’s ChatGPT went from 0 to one million users in a matter of days, and this month,?Microsoft is in talks to invest as much as $10 billion in the company. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly spreading, and thanks to OpenAI, anybody can get free access for now. As a business owner and content marketing enthusiast, I’m excited about the possibilities for creating better, more relevant content in marketing.

The surge in AI adoption in marketing is very recent. Only last year, the Smart Insights?report on marketing automation practices?showed that just 13% of respondents were using AI and machine learning for marketing at the time of the survey. Close to one-third of respondents (38%) plan to deploy AI tools within 12 months, further evidenced by the uptake in the last few weeks. Yet half (49%) of businesses still need plans to implement AI or machine learning to support their marketing. With new technology, it often isn’t clear how to apply it to your business.

While the idea of using AI to create and distribute content may seem daunting, the reality is that it can be a powerful tool for improving content strategy development. After all, the epitome of marketing is to reach a targeted audience and drive more sales conversions.?AI has already started to change the game for marketing. This post explores three ways AI can help you create more relevant content by allowing you:

• Optimise
• Personalise?
• Analyse

Use AI to Optimise Your Content

One of the biggest benefits of AI in content marketing is its ability to optimise your content. I’m a big fan of buyer personas and the level of personalisation I can achieve by going in-depth into how a buyer thinks and feels. By analysing data on your audience, AI can help you identify the topics and formats that resonate most with your target buyer persona. Rather than guessing or making assumptions, you can use tools like IBM Watson Studio (or a simple spreadsheet) to find trends that segment your audience. This allows you to create content that is more likely to be shared, liked, and commented on, which will help you drive more traffic to your website.

Collect Data on Your Audience

The first step in optimising your content with AI is to collect data on your ideal buyer persona. This can include their demographics, interests, behaviour, and preferences. If you have a working?marketing strategy?that includes your target buyer personas, that will accelerate your understanding of your market. I like to name my personas to bring them to life.

You can also collect audience data through surveys, social media, and website analytics. Tools like Pollfish allow you to create AI-powered polls based on your survey goals. Instagram and LinkedIn are great social platforms for polls that give you insight into your audience.

Analyse Audience Data

Once you have collected data on your audience, the next step is to analyse it. You can use AI tools such as natural language processing and machine learning to analyse the data and uncover insights. These tools can help you identify the topics and formats that resonate most with your target audience.

IBM Watson Studio is an example of an AI tool that can analyse audience data. It is a cloud-based platform that provides tools for data scientists, developers, and engineers to work with data and build, train, and deploy machine learning models.

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to use IBM Watson Studio to analyse audience data:

IBM Watson Studio allows you to work with data in a collaborative environment, where you can easily share and access data, models, and results. It also offers a wide range of data preparation, integration, modelling, and deployment tools. It is a great tool for analysing audience data and uncovering insights that can help you improve your content strategy. I’m not an expert on the platform, but here’s a tutorial for?getting started with IBM Watson Studio.

Use the Insights to Optimise Content

After analysing the data, you can use the insights to create content. The insights help you determine the topics and formats your target audience is most interested in and create content tailored to their needs and preferences.

Various AI tools can help you ensure that you get the attention of your ideal customer. These include tools for identifying keywords (there’s a list below), optimising headlines (check out?Coschedule), and creating visual elements such as images and videos.

Here are some keyword tools for identifying keywords in a content strategy:

Finally, it is important to measure and analyse the results of your efforts. You should be ready to change tactics based on feedback and data. I will cover this later in this article.

Use AI to Personalise Your Content

So, you’ve analysed your audience, and let’s say you now understand elements like: who they are, their pain points, some of the topics they are researching and the keywords that will reach them. Personalisation allows you to create content tailored to specific segments of your audience, which can help you drive more conversions.

Segment Your Audience

Use your data insights to group your audience into different segments based on their needs and preferences. Identify key criteria for segmenting your audience, such as job responsibilities, pain points, experience and behavioural preferences. For instance, you might have two groups – one with buyer personas with less than five years of work experience and find specific pain points that are common with them, compared to Group 2, that have over five years in their industry.

Here is some guidance for how to segment your audience:

Create Personalised Content

Now that you have segmented your audience, you can create personalised content. AI tools like ChatGPT, Jasper AI and Lex Page can automate personalisation, generating tailored emails and website experiences.

Create a Content Distribution Plan

Now you have an optimised, personalised content strategy to reach your target audience. What’s next?

You must consider how and where you will distribute your content. You can use the insights to determine the best times and channels to distribute your content. For example, if your audience is most active on social media in the evenings, you should schedule your social media posts for that time.

Use AI to Measure and Analyse Your Results

With a content strategy in place, you can look at automation tools such as a scheduling app (thank goodness LinkedIn has this feature now). Personalised email campaigns are easier than they’ve ever been. So, now you’re set, but let’s look at some KPIs for keeping your content strategy on track.

Identify Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

The first step in measuring and analysing your content strategy results is identifying the key performance indicators (KPIs) most important for your business.

Several metrics can be used to measure the performance of a content strategy, including:

Use Insights to Improve Your Content Strategy

Once you have analysed the data and uncovered insights, the next step is to use them to improve your content strategy. You can use the insights to make data-driven decisions about the topics and formats that resonate most with your target audience, the best times and channels to distribute your content, and even the type of content most effectively driving conversions.

Continuously Measure and Analyse Results

Finally, it is important to measure and analyse your results continuously. Regularly tracking your performance using AI can help you identify changes in audience behaviour and adjust your content strategy accordingly.

Ford Saeks, a renowned business growth consultant,?noted in his recent LinkedIn Live that “AI can improve efficiency by automating tasks and allowing human workers to focus on unique skills.” So far, I’ve found AI to be a game-changer for our marketing team. When it comes to creating content strategies, we are faster and more efficient than ever.

Share how you’re using AI for content strategy today.

This article was originally published on the Doqaru blog on 31 January 2023