Anyone who regularly reads my articles knows just how powerful email marketing is and how in the right hands, it can propel your sales forward, improve brand loyalty, and help keep you at the very top of your game. Admittedly, email marketing falls short of making a cup of tea!
But what about in the future? AI is here, and it’s becoming part of every aspect of life – plus, unlike email marketing, there’s every chance that one day it will be able to make a decent cuppa! Is there still room for email marketing in an AI-dominated world, or is it about to be pushed off its pedestal?
I do have some thoughts!
Email Marketing: Where We Are Now?
Before we dive into the future, let’s look at email marketing in the here and now. It’s a huge benefit to businesses and their marketing strategy because it is:
- Cost-effective - Even the largest email marketing campaigns can be done for relatively small budgets.
- Fast - Email marketing can be developed quickly and is easy to keep on top of.
- Personal - Delivered directly to the customer and with easily customised aspects, email is among the most personal of all marketing techniques.
- Versatile - Whether you’re using it to onboard a new customer, promote a new product, or give a gentle nudge to close that sale, email marketing is the tool for the job.
So, what about artificial intelligence?
The Double-Edged AI Sword
AI has been around for some time, but it’s only in the last 18 months that we’ve seen widespread adoption – including in email marketing. It’s a fantastic tool, but as helpful as AI is, it’s also brought some problems along for the ride, particularly in the world of AI-generated content (and that includes emails).
Misinterpretation and Fake News
AI struggles to determine the veracity of information. After all, it lacks common sense, so if something is presented to it as fact, it believes that as fact. This has led to a huge spread of misinterpretation, where AI content believes something to be true that simply isn’t. Great for conspiracies, but not so good for accurate and helpful information.
Plus, it’s a worrying spiral as newer AI is fed by the poor information created by earlier AI, leading to a rabbit hole of confusing rubbish!
This means that people are starting to mistrust the information presented, which is both sensible and also problematic. If you can’t tell what’s AI and what’s genuinely good advice, how do you know what to believe?
Mass Spamming Content
I thought I could type fast, but compared to AI, I’m a slug! Content can be generated by AI systems so quickly that it’s almost impossible to fathom, and it doesn’t stop with making content – AI systems can send that out and deliver it in seconds.
Unfortunately, this leads to a huge glut of content (and, as explained above, not all of it is good or reliable). It’s a mass spamming machine!
Generic Content
When you first get a modern AI to write something for you, your eyes widen. It’s so impressive as to seem magical. However, after the second or third time, you start to realise that everything is said in the same way, with the same information regurgitated again and again. AI is, for all its amazing features, incredibly generic.
I don’t blame it – after all, the AI has never truly seen a waterfall to inspire an idea or stubbed its toe to cause unwarranted frustration. It’s not its fault, but it doesn’t lead to truly original or inspiring content.
AI and Email Marketing
That’s all well and good, but what about AI and email marketing specifically? It’s true that adoption of AI has changed the landscape. There are a lot of tools that can really help marketers as I wrote about a couple of months ago.
Link to “AI and Email Marketing – What You Really Need to Know” – from the May schedule of articles.
But remember, AI is a tool. It’s not a replacement for the human touch. When it comes to scheduling your emails, or compiling the data for a truly effective marketing campaign, I’m an AI fan but don’t get it to write your content unless you want your customers to start rejecting you.
It won’t happen quickly – some won’t notice, others won’t care, and plenty of times the AI may get it right – but it will happen.
One day your engagement will start dropping, and it’ll be really hard to determine why – it could very well be the monotony of tedious AI-written emails. Ouch.
On the plus side, AI can offer great personalisation way beyond the ‘Hi <NAME>’ form of greetings. It can tailor the content based on past purchases without any manual scouring of data, and it can definitely help you if you get writer’s block. Just don’t send any AI-generated emails out unedited.
Let’s also not forget trust. Email marketing relies on authenticity and trust to work – if your customer feels that you can’t even be bothered to write the emails yourself, are they going to invest in your product or service?
Use AI wisely! Maybe one day we’ll encounter ancient and wise artificial intelligence, but until that day, it’s still a strictly human trait!
The Future of Email
As AI grows and improves – and it will – where will email marketing sit in the sales chain?
Right at the top!
Until email itself is superseded, it will continue to be a truly valuable marketing tool. It’s how you:
- Present yourself in a personal way.
- Build trust through authenticity and reliability.
- Gently keep yourself at the top of people’s minds.
- Introduce new products and services to a targeted audience.
AI is going to dominate when it comes to search engine SEO rankings, no doubt, affecting that landscape far more rapidly and thoroughly than email marketing. Its nature means email sits outside of that – you’re never battling for a top-ranking spot with email!
Email can adapt and thrive in the AI era. Used well, it’s a tool that’s going to enhance the personalisation and deliverability of your marketing communication, freeing up your time so that your human creativity, originality, and authenticity can remain at the core.
Through a mix of human content and AI efficiency, email can remain a trusted channel for delivering verified information and building genuine relationships with customers.
Improving Your Email Marketing with AI
Want to know how to use those AI tools to an optimum level? I’ve been working with them for months, studying and researching every aspect to utilise them as best as possible – and I can share that knowledge with you! Contact me, Nathan Littleton, and let’s see how we can work together to energise your email marketing with AI.
