Tag Archive for: AI

An image of a ChatGPT conversation.

These 4 OpenAI Plugins Will Change the Way You Work

Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing how many industries operate. This is especially true for the digital marketing industry. With a plethora of tools at your fingertips, AI has become difficult to ignore.

In particular, OpenAI has been leading the charge with its AI creations, including DALL-E, Whisper, OpenAI API, and, of course, the chatbot that started the craze: ChatGPT. If you are somehow unfamiliar with ChatGPT, go to chat.openai.com to catch up with the rest of the world. With its advanced natural language processing (NLP), ChatGPT took the world by storm upon release.

Whether you are using GPT-3 or GPT-4, it’s easy to see how OpenAI’s signature product took the world by storm. Using ChatGPT feels like using a cheat code, with its vast array of features and incredible functionality. However, as amazing as it is, there are still plenty of limitations.

This is where OpenAI plugins come in (specifically, ChatGPT plugins). While ChatGPT has diverse features, plugins allow for entirely new and different use cases not previously available.

How Do ChatGPT Plugins Work?

Starting with only a small number of contributors to ensure safety, OpenAI has slowly allowed more and more developers and users of OpenAI API to create ChatGPT plugins for GPT-4. While some of OpenAI’s code is available on Github, ChatGPT is left private until given authorization. 

These plugins provide users with far more ways to use ChatGPT with new functionality and updated artificial intelligence. More and more plugins are being developed over time, but many of the existing plugins have amazing digital marketing applications. With abilities to assist with SEO, content marketing, social media, web development, and more, ChatGPT plugins can turn the tool into an AI-powered digital marketing expert.

To access OpenAI plugins, first, you need to pay for ChatGPT Plus. After that, enable plugin access in your settings, at which point you can check your enabled plugins. If it says no plugins are enabled, navigate to the plugin store. Plugins are still in beta, but there is no waitlist to access them, so you should have no hurdles.

Now that we have gotten that out of the way, we can delve more into the specific plugins you should use for your digital marketing efforts — or at least try a tutorial.

  1. SEOPress

This AI model allows you to input a URL and a keyword, and, in turn, receive an abundance of on-page SEO information. This includes robots.txt, load time, title tags, metadata, headers, image names, keyword occurrence, and more.

This tool is excellent for analyzing your own website, auditing your on-page SEO, and analyzing and researching your competitors’ websites to understand their on-page strategy.

  1. Social Search

If you are trying to find social media trends or what a specific personality has been saying online, Social Search is the right plugin for you. This plugin API pulls data from X (formerly Twitter) based on trending hashtags, popular topics, and specific user handles based on your search query.

This tool helps you keep up to date with the trending topics on social media, which helps you create relevant and topical posts for your social media strategy.

  1. Visla

Visla is a video generation plugin. Based on the video topic that the user inputs, Visla pulls from public stock footage to create short-form videos that the user can use for content marketing purposes. It helps the plugin generate the video more effectively if the user inputs other properties such as video title, description, tone, etc.

  1. Speedy Marketing

Last, but certainly not least, Speedy Marketing is a content generator specializing in SEO-optimized copywriting. Simply provide your website’s URL to the chatbot and give a brief description of the content you want it to write to get a piece of content that can help boost your rankings in SERPs.

This plugin can help a lot if you don’t have the time to write blog articles or product descriptions from scratch.

Maximize ChatGPT’s Potential

With these 4 ChatGPT plugins, you can take your digital marketing strategy to the next level. And don’t stop here: look further into OpenAI’s plugin store and craft your own plugin list that you can leverage to maximize your potential. Remember, AI is not a replacement for your own work, it is a partner. 

Still not sure about using artificial intelligence at a high capacity? Looking for a more human partner? Look no further than iSynergy. If you need help with anything in the digital marketing space, we are here to help. Get in touch so we can get started!

Screenshot of a ChatGPT-generated blog.

AI-Generated Content Is NOT Making Us Obsolete

For a while now, people have been afraid of the development and usage of artificial intelligence, thinking that it will one day make us obsolete. As we all know, the advancement of AI has made massive leaps in recent years, particularly in the digital marketing industry, with huge platforms providing AI-generated content, such as ChatGPT and Jasper, being easily accessible to the public.

Now that advanced AI technology is right in front of us, many are beginning to develop that fear once again. But are these fears justified? Is OpenAI trying to take over the workforce? Are those of us who use AI tools contributing to our own downfall?

No. At least, not yet.

Why Do People Think AI Is Taking Their Jobs?

For a human copywriter, the time it takes to build an outline, do some research, and actually write the words can easily add up. Depending on the length of the content, this could take a couple of hours. For something like ChatGPT, this takes mere minutes (or seconds).

Not only is the content generated quickly, but it’s also SEO-friendly. AI writing tools are designed to pull from highly ranked sources on search engines.

AI can also come up with content ideas. While humans are sometimes plagued with writer’s block, a machine-learning program never has this issue. In fact, AI chatbots like ChatGPT can generate numerous topic ideas in mere moments, almost eliminating the need for human brainstorming.

And then there is the biggest threat of AI, which goes beyond the digital marketing industry: pricing. Even if you use the paid version of ChatGPT (GPT-4), it often costs far less than a copywriter.

Between the versatility, speed, and cost benefits of AI content writers, it sure seems like the future of the industry. However, AI-generated content still has a few major issues that need to be fixed before the threat to human content creators can be taken seriously.

AI Is Not Advanced Enough Yet to Be a Threat

Yes, AI content generators have made significant progress. The use cases of AI have expanded greatly, and now it can write product descriptions, social media post captions, ad copy, help with brainstorming, and generate high-quality, SEO-optimized new content. Natural language processing is better than ever, and AI writers can create a new piece of content in a fraction of the time it takes for the user to even type out the prompt.

So… how is AI not a threat?

What Do Human Writers Have That AI Writers Don’t?

If you are using AI consistently for content writing, then you should know that AI writing still requires a lot of human intervention. AI is versatile and can generate content very quickly. Although the content is often high quality from an optimization standpoint, there are still issues with AI’s copywriting skills.

Risk of Plagiarism

For starters, AI writing tools have been found to plagiarize other people’s work. Content writing AI algorithms are designed to learn from existing content on the internet and write content based on these sources.

Because of how these machine learning algorithms are designed, AI-generated content can sometimes be too similar to existing content and get flagged for plagiarism.

Lack of Personality

Another glaring issue with generative AI is the lack of personality compared to human written content. AI copywriters are designed to be objective and factual. Because of this, the writing can come off as bland. You can ask AI tools to write in a certain tone or voice, but there’s no guarantee that it will match what you had in mind.

While human writers use their thoughts and feelings about a subject to enhance their writing, AI simply can’t do this. AI’s content creation process differs from ours and does not allow opinions on subjects to influence their writing. (And if AI is advanced enough to hold opinions, we have bigger problems.) At the end of the day, there is no such thing as a gray area for generative AI.

Google May Punish AI Content in Rankings

Yes, AI writers are good at search engine optimization. However, Google’s algorithm cares about more than just that. Content also needs to, as the kids say, E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness), which AI may struggle to do.

Because AI pulls from existing sources, very little originality or authenticity exists within the content. When search engines see this issue, you get penalized for it. While AI text may be optimized for SEO, you still need to edit the content itself so that Google is satisfied.

Made-Up Statistics

At this point, you get it. AI pulls from what it finds on the internet and spits it back out in whatever fashion you asked for. So what if it can’t find the right information on the internet – or if it finds too many varying responses? Not to worry, it will just make something up!

Yes, AI tools are doing their best to answer your prompt quickly. And we all know that misinformation is rampant on the internet with multiple answers to the same question. That’s why you always need to fact-check any statistics or numbers that AI provides; you never know where the source of that information is (although maybe we will get sourced information in the future) — or whether that information is correct or not.

AI Still Requires Humans

Did you notice how many steps of the AI content creation process need a human’s input? When AI has incorrect (or straight-up plagiarized) content, a human needs to go in and fix it. Due to unoriginal content being punished in search results, a human needs to edit the copy to make it suitable for rankings. When copy is generic and uninteresting, it needs a human touch.

AI has made great strides as far as what it is capable of doing. The thought of AI generating comprehensible long-form content was unimaginable just a few years ago. Now it can help with the creation of many different types of content.

But in order to generate truly high-quality content with AI, a human still needs to help out. That’s why AI content generators have not replaced human copywriters; they just can’t quite hit the target on their own just yet. 

As language models and machine learning algorithms become more advanced, AI might do more on its own. However, with the current levels of functionality, there is nothing to be worried about. AI tools are still just that: tools. You can use them to help write the copy for your landing page or LinkedIn post, but it is not replacing you.

AI Image Generation

Another trend on the rise is AI-generated images. While there are plenty of great use cases for AI image generation and, for the most part, it works great, it has not replaced the need for human graphic designers, illustrators, or photographers. AI tools can create images or expand them but that doesn’t mean they are totally accurate or useful. Most notably, it can’t get humans quite right. A lot of AI-generated images of humans have extra appendages or other offputting features.

Looking For a Non-AI Digital Marketing Partner?

AI certainly has its place in content marketing strategy, there is no doubt about that. However, the expertise and abilities of experienced and talented copywriters are not easily replicated by AI-generated content. You still need skilled content creators to help shape and execute your content strategy.

If you’re struggling to find the right people to help content flourish, look no further than iSynergy! We have experts in all facets of digital marketing, including content creation. Reach out today and let’s get started.

A robot writer representing AI tools for content writing.

Tips for Using AI Tools for Content Writing

As technology advances, it’s increasingly clear that artificial intelligence will continue playing a significant role in content creation. Many content creators already utilize AI to assist them in their tasks, including copywriting and brainstorming. Almost anything can be streamlined thanks to tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

AI writing tools (such as ChatGPT, Copy.AI, Jasper, Rytr, and Writesonic) have been released to great fanfare, with many lauding them as the future of copywriting. Thanks to machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and language models, AI writing tools have grown exponentially into what we now see today.

But you can’t just trust an AI writer to do all your work for you. Even the best AI writing tools can’t effectively replace human writers — yet. AI text generators create short-form content fairly well but struggle more with long-form content. While they are great at paraphrasing or summarizing information in a user-friendly format, they tend to lack personality and tone of voice.

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be using AI copywriting tools for content marketing – just that you need to use them the right way. Know which types of content an AI content writing tool can help you with, and when to leverage it for help when you are struggling. While using AI helps streamline the writing process, it doesn’t eliminate it.

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Icons of different marketing automation platforms, including MailChimp, HubSpot, and Salesforce.

Diving Into 2024 Marketing Automation Platforms

Whether you’re a small business or a larger company, there just never seems to be enough time in the day. That doesn’t mean you should let your business’s marketing strategies fall by the wayside. Look to automation platforms instead.

Marketing automation platforms have become one of the most important tools for digital marketers, especially with the rise of AI-powered marketing tools. They allow you to create automated messages, schedule emails, and much more.

Understanding Marketing Automation Software

There’s a lot of repetition in marketing tasks; finding the best marketing automation software is a great, or possibly even essential, move for your business.

Marketing automation tools are perfect for saving your marketing team time. You can also keep customer data, lead management, and follow-up correspondence in one place — you can even utilize these tools for email marketing campaigns and automatically send out emails.

On top of saving yourself from repetitive tasks, marketing automation software helps you effectively leverage data and metrics, giving you a competitive advantage.

Marketo Engage

Owned by Adobe, Marketo – a multi-channel example – is the world’s largest marketing automation tool that helps marketers create, manage, and optimize campaigns, especially for businesses marketing to other businesses. 

  • SEO
  • A/B Testing
  • Email Marketing
  • Landing Pages
  • Social Media and CRM Integration (Customer Relationship Management)
  • Website Personalization
  • Lead Nurturing and Tracking
  • Campaign Analysis

Marketo is built on the Google Cloud and pricing depends on your database. You have to talk with their sales team to find out the cost.

Salesforce

Salesforce (formerly Pardot) is a comprehensive marketing automation platform for both B2B and B2C businesses. Salesforce is a Cloud-based CRM tool that offers many features, including email marketing, landing pages, and social media marketing.

The platform integrates with other Salesforce products so that all your data is in one place. This American-based software also has AI capabilities to help you manage leads, opportunities, and contacts.

Services

There are different services that Salesforce offers: 

    • PaaS – build your own websites and apps
    • SaaS – use built-in software
    • IaaS – use the cloud 

There are various pricing plans depending on what you need from your system. Customer support can be difficult, along with purchasing add-ons and a confusing interface.

Oracle Eloqua

Geared toward B2B marketing, Eloqua is a jam-packed marketing automation platform that helps you build, automate, and measure campaigns across all your marketing channels. It also has integrations with many apps and services. 

Great for large enterprises, other features include:

  • Social Media Management
  • Email Campaigns
  • List Segmentation
  • Email Content Database 
  • Real-Time Lead Scoring
  • Drop Sequences
  • Reporting
  • Custom Security Roles

A free version can be used to create campaigns using email templates in a drag-and-drop editor or by using the APIs. Packages begin at a high price point, making this tool only a viable option for larger businesses.

Hubspot

HubSpot is a marketing automation platform that allows you to create and send emails, set up landing pages, and track your leads. The free trial lasts 30 days, but there’s no limit on how many contacts can be added during the trial period. Whether you’re a conglomerate or a smaller business, Hubspot can accommodate your needs.

HubSpot also has free virtual classes on different aspects of marketing, like lead generation, customer behavior, social media management, and other marketing efforts.

The free plan includes all of the features of their paid plans except contact management (a maximum of 1,000 contacts) and social media monitoring. Pricing is a pain point for smaller businesses, and there are limited designs for email marketing.

Brevo

Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is a French omnichannel email marketing platform. It offers both free and paid plans. The free plan is limited to 2,000 subscribers and 300 emails a day but comes with unlimited contacts.

Along with email marketing tools, this SaaS can also manage SMS messages and conduct A/B testing while getting real-time reporting. Some users have listed contact management as a frustration with this platform.

While they offer a free trial and plans start at $25, you can also customize your plan to fit your needs.

EngageBay

You can streamline your marketing, sales, and customer engagement with EngageBay CRM. It’s a marketing automation software that allows you to send personalized emails, automated emails, templates, and more. Segmentation options and drip campaigns are also available.

Integration with Xero and Zapier allows for easy third-party app usage. You can also use it on Apple, Android, and Windows devices. 

Try a free demo before scouting out their packages, starting at $15 a month. While this is relatively inexpensive, you may also have to purchase other instruments, leading to additional costs.

Customer.io

Customer.io is a customer data and marketing automation tool that helps companies manage their customer lists. Their platform allows you to create detailed customer profiles, conduct lead scoring and A/B testing, and much more (like real-time behavior data). You can even send push notifications.

It also has a large user base with over 5,000 companies ranging from small to large businesses. Integrations include, but aren’t limited to, Slack, PayPal, Google Analytics, and Shopify.

Functionality on the mobile app and CRM integration can be challenging, taking away from the customer experience. There’s also no AI option within the software to help create content, nor a spam blocker. While there’s no free version, Customer.io has a free trial. Subscription pricing starts at $100 per month. 

Constant Contact

Constant Contact is one of the most popular marketing automation platforms for small businesses, thanks to its simple and easy-to-use features.

It has a wide range of integrations with other services, like Salesforce and Hubspot (and even social media), as well as its own CRM system. There are also email templates for each stage of the customer journey. Keep your customer lists organized by tagging them, and uploading them from Microsoft Excel, Outlook, or Salesforce.

It is important to note that if you need extensive and advanced automation, their features may not fulfill your business needs. For example, A/B testing is limited to email subject lines.

There’s no free plan, but pricing begins at $10 a month for folks just getting started and increases on services you need. 

Omnisend

Omnisend is a marketing automation platform that helps you manage email campaigns, landing pages, and social media marketing. It’s a popular inbound marketing option for ecommerce, with integration into apps such as Shopify, Magento, and WooCommerce.

The dominant traits of Omnisend are workflow automation, email marketing, and SMS marketing, and they have great customer support.

While there’s a free plan for email and SMS marketing, pay plans begin at $16 a month. If you want unlimited user accounts and emails, those are offered in the Enterprise-level planning. Templates are also limited.

ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is a great all-in-one marketing automation solution. Offering email marketing automation, CRM, data tracking & reporting, etc., ActiveCampaign satisfies a vast array of marketing needs.

While the price can be a dealbreaker for some, as even the lowest tier costs $29 per month, for many it is justified by the sheer scope of marketing automation features offered. 

Stacking Against HubSpot

While HubSpot offers many different tools, ActiveCampaign has a lot of the same features, but at a lower price. These tools combined with an ease-of-use interface can make ActiveCampaign a favorable alternative.

MailChimp

MailChimp is excellent for sending newsletters and emails. It allows for audience segmentation by various criteria, offers campaign management, and you can optimize with AI. Many of its users say MailChimp is user-friendly, has great analytic capabilities, and favorable email templates.

MailChimp is good for both large and small businesses, and a free version is offered. Plans start at $13 a month after a free month.

Deciding on Your Marketing Automation Platform

As you can see, there are a ton of marketing automation platforms out there. Which one is the best for your business? Well, choosing your automated marketing software depends on your marketing strategy needs and goals. 

If you still need help managing your marketing strategies, give us a call.

A human-like form of artificial intelligence reading a book.

Boost Your Marketing Strategy With 15 of the Best AI Marketing Tools

While AI was once a dream for the future, it’s now weaved into our everyday lives.

Siri is a great example of it, along with Google Assistant. You can use it for day-to-day operations like asking about the weather, but it’s also a huge asset as a marketing platform.

If you’re a marketer, you know how hard it can be to keep up with the latest trends. Nowadays, plenty of new AI marketing tools come out every day. Luckily, you have us to give you a list of the best AI marketing tools.

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Digital marketer using ChatGBT on a computer.

Are You Getting the Most Out of AI in Your Marketing Strategies?

In today’s ever-evolving digital landscape, staying ahead of the curve means having a firm grasp on artificial intelligence (AI). What about AI in marketing? Marketing teams leverage AI by using it to run effective campaigns, gain powerful insights into customer behavior, personalize campaigns based on spending habits, and improve results.

Generative AI can even be integrated into content marketing efforts to get you a competitive advantage in an overcrowded market. Take a deep dive into different use cases for AI in marketing initiatives.

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