By Stephen Newton, Managing Director for Sub-Saharan Africa, Ad Dynamo by Aleph

Over the past few months, OpenAI’s ChatGPT has taken the world by storm. If you haven’t been following news about the artificial intelligence (AI) tool, you might think that sounds hyperbolic. But it’s not.

Stephen Newton, Managing Director, Sub-Saharan Africa, Ad Dynamo by Aleph

In February this year, it became the fastest consumer tool ever, with 100 million users, taking just two months to reach that point.

While the tool isn’t perfect (like many AI applications, it’s prone to occasional bouts of hallucination), it is still incredibly powerful. When used correctly, it can be transformative for people working across a broad range of industries. Digital marketing is no exception.

Although AI-based image, audio, and video generation tools seem like more of a natural fit for marketing (at least from a creative point of view), ChatGPT can be very effective both on its own and in combination with those other tools. It really comes into its own when it comes to putting together marketing strategies and campaigns.

Research and information gathering

In fact, ChatGPT can play an important role from the very early stages of putting strategies and campaigns together. As anyone with extensive experience in digital marketing will tell you, good research can be vital to a successful campaign. But even basic background research can take an extended period of time.

Even if you’re a search engine whiz, getting the information you want can take hours upon hours of searching. That’s to say, nothing of the expertise needed when the research gets more granular, and you need to analyse large volumes of data. ChatGPT can make both basic research and deep analysis significantly quicker. In the case of the former, you’ll get a much quicker answer to something like “How many 15 to 24-year-olds are there in Nigeria?” (useful for figuring out your total addressable market) on ChatGPT than if you had to search for and sift through the relevant statistics yourself.

And when deeper knowledge is required, ChatGPT can assist in market research by analysing large volumes of data, identifying trends, and generating insights. Marketers can utilise this information to understand consumer preferences, monitor competitors, identify emerging market trends, and refine their marketing strategies accordingly.

ChatGPT can also be used for A/B testing and optimisation. Using the AI tool, marketers can run simulated A/B tests for campaign messaging and variations. By inputting different prompts or content options, they can generate responses from ChatGPT and assess which approach resonates most with the target audience. This can help them better optimise campaign elements before implementation.

Beyond that, ChatGPT can interact with website visitors or social media users to collect information, qualify leads, and gather customer preferences. With those capabilities, marketers can design conversational flows that capture relevant data, segment prospects, and identify potential opportunities for personalised marketing campaigns.

Fueling creativity 

Using an AI tool like ChatGPT for those research and insight-gathering purposes would likely make intuitive sense to digital marketers. After all, many of the tools they currently use already have some AI capabilities. ChatGPT just takes things a step further and makes it easier to gather that information.

But those are far from the only capabilities that ChatGPT has. It can also be used in the creative conceptualisation process and, assist in generating high-quality content for various marketing channels, such as blog posts, social media updates, email newsletters, and website copy.

With the correct input of prompts and descriptive  briefings, ChatGPT can provide creative ideas, headlines, product descriptions, and engaging narratives.

Of course, it might not deliver the same level of quality as you’d get from an experienced copywriter, but it would provide a useful start or send you in a direction you wouldn’t previously have thought of. Think of it a bit like GPS. You could use it to find the most direct route from A to B, or you can use it to take roads you’ve never been down before without worrying you’ll ever get lost.

ChatGPT can also allow you to take more creative approaches to things like the customer engagement elements of a campaign. For example, it can be integrated into chatbots or live chat systems on websites and social media platforms. That, in turn, means that it can handle customer inquiries, provide personalised recommendations, and offer support in a conversational manner.

Partnerships still matter 

With all  those capabilities, it would be tempting to think that you could ditch your digital marketing agency and do it all yourself. But, as impressive as the technology is, it’s not quite there yet. The right marketing partner, with deep expertise and experience on the internet’s most popular platforms, is still crucial to ensuring that your marketing messages are seen by the right people. Chances are, such a partner will also have the technical expertise and understanding needed to get the most out of such evolving AI tools like ChatGPT.

So, if you want to make the most of ChatGPT in your digital marketing efforts, don’t go at it alone. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get familiar with it and explore its capabilities yourself. AI will  play a profound role in future careers, and we should learn how to use all of the relevant tools. But unless you have the deep industry knowledge needed to get the most out of these tools, you will be better off partnering with experts who hold that knowledge for a good while yet.