AI Tools Marketers Can Use Right Now
Katrina Olson
Marketing trainer, coach, and consultant (I fix things and get stuff done.)
You’ve no doubt read and heard a lot about AI (artificial intelligence) tools and thought:
?
The short answers to your questions are:
Now, if you're wondering why I used a picture of a brindle Plott Hound driving a truck through the rural countryside, you'll also have to keep reading.
I have a network of amazing women in the electrical distribution industry—women who are happy to share their knowledge, expertise, tools, and secrets.
Sonia Coleman, principal of NeuConcept, Inc., a client, vendor, colleague, and friend for more than 20 years, turned me on to ChatGPT which offers a free account as well as a more powerful paid account. Marketers can use ChatGPT to:
It’s not perfect, and sometimes it just makes stuff up. I tested ChatGPT when writing bios for the NAED Best of the Best Adventure panel I moderated earlier this year. ChatGPT labeled a panelist as a psychiatrist! (Susan Mason, VP of Marketing and Digital Strategies for Springfield Electric is not a psychiatrist, but she very wise and insightful, and a good listener.)
However, ChatGPT is great for getting you jump-started or ?combatting writer’s block. Visit https://chat.openai.com/, start an account, and try it out.
More recently, Amanda Lally, my mentee in the Empowering Women Mentorship Program (EWMP), founded by the amazing Kathy Jo Van and Stacey Felzer, introduced me to an image-generating feature on a beta version of Photoshop.
Amanda Lally is a Marketing Coordinator at U.S. Electrical Services, Inc. in New Jersey. I was telling her about a technology I saw demonstrated on a workshop that enabled a person to create a photo simply by typing in a description.
Amanda and I agreed to dig around and check back with each other. When we reconvened the next day, she demonstrated for me an image-generating feature on a beta version of Photoshop, and how she used it to create a digital ad for an upcoming promotion. She took an existing photo, deleted and replaced the backgrounds, added images and more using simple commands and drawing from a library of existing images in Photoshop.
My search, using ChatGPT, yielded several free tools and platforms that use AI to generate photos and images. Accompanying this article is an image I created by asking DALL?E?2 (OpenAI) found at https://labs.openai.com/ to “Create a photo of a brown brindle plot hound dog with a graying muzzle behind the wheel of a blue Ford F150 pickup truck down a country road with cornfields on either side.” (This is my husband’s dog and truck driving down what looks like the road to our rural, Central Illinois home. I think I'm going to make a card or t-shirt for him.)
Deep Dream Generator: This online platform allows you to apply neural network algorithms to your images to create unique and surreal visuals. It's free to use with some limitations.
Artbreeder: Artbreeder offers a free version of its platform that allows users to blend and modify images using GANs. It offers a limited number of exports with the free account.
Nvidia GauGAN: Nvidia's GauGAN allows you to turn sketches into realistic images for free, with a web version of the tool available for public use.
领英推荐
Runway ML (Free Trial): Runway ML offers a free trial version with limited access to its AI-powered creative tools, allowing you to experiment with various features.
DALL?E 2 (OpenAI): While not a platform, OpenAI's DALL·E? 2 model is available for free, and you can experiment with it using code and the OpenAI API to generate images from textual descriptions. You’ll have to buy 115 credits for $15 to get started; and each query/question that generates four images will cost you one credit. The trick is to be very specific in your description the first time around so you’ll need fewer refinements.
This Person Does Not Exist: This website generates AI-generated images of fictitious people for free. It provides an unlimited number of randomly generated faces. This could be useful for creating customer personas!
DeepAI: DeepAI offers various free AI-powered image generation tools, including neural style transfer, text-to-image synthesis, and more.?
Runway ML Community Edition: Runway ML offers a free Community Edition that provides access to some of its creative AI tools, although it may have limitations compared to the paid version.
While these platforms offer free access to their tools, they often come with limitations, such as watermarked images or reduced export capabilities. Also, terms and conditions may change over time, so it's a good idea to check the specific terms for each platform before using them.
Don’t think for a minute that these tools are just for big departments or large companies. Rather, they’re just as if not more helpful for small to medium-sized companies who don’t have access to writers, graphic designers, sophisticated design platforms, and stock photo libraries. Try one or two of these tools and let me know how it works for you!
--------------------------------
Katrina Olson brings 35 years’ experience and a passion for marketing to her work as a speaker/trainer, consultant, coach and writer for B2B industries. She has written for several trade publications, shares articles on LinkedIn, and is a frequent speaker and panel moderator.
She enjoys working with nimble, entrepreneurial organizations and has garnered more than 50 national and regional marketing and advertising awards for client work in the financial, healthcare, and distribution industries, among others.
Katrina taught marketing, PR, and business/persuasive writing for 10 years at the University of Illinois?where she piloted the capstone class, "The Sandage Project" for students to work with local non-profits. She was instrumental in developing the PR Certificate program. She holds a Master’s in Media Communication from Webster University and a Certificate in Marketing Excellence from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Reach her at [email protected].
?
?