With 2024 just around the corner, it’s time to take a fresh look at your brand strategy. Along with figuring out how to chart out your next quarter and build a stronger brand, you need to address the elephant in the room — AI. Gone are the days when we could afford to wait to see how AI plays out for other brands. Now, if you want to stay toe-to-toe with your competitors, you need to hop on the latest tech, and today that is AI. 

Hundreds of AI solutions have sprung up in recent years, and it’s tricky to narrow down which AI-led tech you actually need and which would simply weigh down your annual brand budget. So, let’s get to it.

Define your 2024 goals

Understand where you are lagging in terms of branding and marketing and identify what would help you get there. Conduct a thorough competitor analysis to figure out if you need to shift your approach. This could involve delving into content marketing, revamping your web pages for strong brand positioning, identifying loopholes in your current workflow, strengthening your social media presence, or anything in between. 

For instance, consider what your competitor is doing better to drive sales and traffic. Chart out their pros and cons with a comparison chart to understand how you can provide an even better experience for your customers.

Jot down your AI use cases

Once your goals and mission for the next quarter are defined, it becomes easier to understand the various areas where you could implement AI to simplify and streamline processes.

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Let’s look at some areas where you could implement AI for brand marketing:

Content creation

With an astounding 83% of creative teams using ChatGPT, as indicated by our recent survey, AI-generated content has become ubiquitous. Before completely dismissing AI-led content, run a few tests to determine how AI copy compares to your original content. A fair warning: with AI-assisted content saturating the landscape, you wouldn't want your brand voice to be diluted or appear generic.

However, AI-generated content holds value for designers and marketers, particularly in time-sensitive campaigns and brand marketing. Instead of adopting a copy-paste approach, use AI-generated content as a starting point and enhance it in half the time it would take your team otherwise.

AI-led tools can be employed to repurpose content, add structure, generate new content ideas, create infographics, compile content briefs, expedite research, and more. This not only reduces ideation time but also accelerates content delivery.

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Social media scheduling and posting

You can schedule your social media posts ahead of time once they are ready, so you don’t miss posting them on time. This also takes a load off your back, and you can checkmark tasks as soon as they’re done, allowing you to focus on other things. 

Today, you can also rely on AI-led tools to determine the best times to post for maximum engagement. Machine learning algorithms dissect data over a period of time, helping you devise your social media strategy for maximum engagement.

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Building chatbots

Today, customers expect a higher level of customer service than in the past. People now have less patience and anticipate prompt replies and service. One way to enhance customer satisfaction and fortify brand loyalty is through the utilization of chatbots. 

Chatbots offer real-time personalized interactions with customers, making it effortless to provide round-the-clock service. While rule-based chatbots are simpler to set up and operate, requiring no downtime, AI-enabled chats are considerably more effective and offer more personalized assistance to customers.

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Brand management

Brand management can be a complex process to handle with a scattered and complicated workflow. AI-led tools make it easier for your brand team to store all your guidelines in one place, making them easily accessible to everyone and checking each brand asset against those guidelines to maintain brand consistency. 

Other features, such as an AI-driven brand asset library, make it easier to store and retrieve brand assets with contextual search metadata and other advanced filters.

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Advertising strategy

How often has your designer grappled with an avalanche of design requests during crunch time? AI can be employed to produce numerous ad designs and various copy variations to address diverse demographics and platforms. 

AI-led automation simplifies the creative design process for different layouts and sizes, facilitating easy modifications of elements and fields within a creative.

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Make sure your content is helpful or original

Google is set to undergo structural changes in its search engine results page by 2024. These modifications will undoubtedly impact the traffic flow and necessitate a shift in our strategic approaches. Google is set to introduce AI-assisted answers on its results page, potentially prolonging user engagement on the page and altering the landscape for organic links.

While traditional organic results, identifiable by blue links on Google, will persist, they will become more challenging to secure. The reduction in their number, coupled with the emergence of AI results and other search features, will alter the dynamics of the results page. 

Breaking into these top results may be more challenging, with established brands likely to receive preferential treatment. However, it remains a daunting but not insurmountable task. 

While traditional optimization guidelines remain pertinent, Google is placing greater emphasis on content it deems helpful or original.

As AI simplifies content production, consider reallocating resources to foster original story development, incorporating expert interviews and research to enhance content quality. This shift reflects Google's increasing preference for content grounded in first-hand experience or deep subject knowledge.

Stay updated with new AI-driven technologies

The market is brimming with AI tools, and while adopting every one isn't necessary, staying abreast of the latest AI tech is crucial. It positions you at the forefront of AI developments, ensuring your brand seizes every opportunity.

As per our latest AI Trends in Creative Operations 2024 report, nearly 40% of Business Leaders prioritize in-person events and conferences for AI upskilling, while others favor blog posts, podcasts, and webinars.

Julia Kahlig-Garuba, Founder & CEO of Herb & Root, highlights the benefits of using AI within her team. 

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“We enjoy using AI to brainstorm content ideas, but we've learned that for writing content, it's not advanced enough to copy and paste. Customers can't resonate with words that sound robotic – we aim to capture our brand tone and splash our content with personality – something AI can't do yet. On the other hand, we enjoy prompting the AI software with questions about our target audience and common questions about our industry for fresh content ideas on the fly.”, says Julia.

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The survey also reveals that a significant 48% of Business Leaders and Supervisors are already investing in paid AI tools. For a detailed exploration of these insights, delve into the full report here. 

Don't miss out on understanding how industry leaders leverage AI tools for the strategic growth of their brands. Stay ahead by embracing AI in your 2024 brand marketing strategy.

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