55 Ways to Unleash Generative AI for Marketing in 2024: Transform Your Entire Customer Journey

As a savvy marketer, it’s vital to understand your potential customers’ journey before they make a purchase. Creating tailored content and messaging strategies for each stage of the journey is crucial to providing an outstanding customer experience and boosting sales and brand loyalty. Though it may require significant time, energy, and resources, getting it right will be worth it. Fortunately, Artificial Intelligence has the power to help you elevate each of these stages and optimize the overall customer experience. Using AI throughout the customer journey has the potential to drive significant innovations to the customer experience.

More specifically, generative AI is an emerging branch of artificial intelligence that harnesses algorithms to “generate” creative content like images, text, or music that can be indistinguishable from those created by humans. This type of AI learns from existing data and then extrapolates and simulates new content based on that data. Essentially, you “train” the AI with existing content and then request the AI to leverage that content by “prompting” it to produce something new. You may have heard of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Midjourney. Countless startups are developing generative AI tools for various activities, making staying current with the latest advances difficult.

As we delve deeper into this article, we’ll uncover how generative AI for marketing can help you revolutionize your customers’ journey, from making initial contact with prospective customers more meaningful to personalizing the product selection and purchasing process to fostering enduring relationships and advocacy post-purchase.

Defining the Customer Journey

Exactly what are the steps a customer takes along their journey? For this article, to better understand how generative AI can drive your marketing innovation throughout the customer journey, let’s break it down into six steps for AI-powered marketing. Each of these six stages contributes to the holistic customer journey, shaping how customers perceive and interact with your brand and ultimately fostering brand loyalty and growth. The good news is that generating content, copy, and credibility can be easier and more productive with AI!

Awareness & Discovery

The first stage of the customer journey focuses on sparking curiosity and making initial connections. This is where you introduce your brand to potential customers, establishing a presence and laying the groundwork for a lasting relationship. Through strategic thought leadership, social media engagement, and captivating storytelling, you aim to capture the attention of your target audience and ignite the journey of exploration.

Typical activities for content generation and customer engagement supporting awareness and discovery:

• Craft compelling advertising and social media campaigns.
• Develop valuable content to address customer needs.
• Implement SEO strategies for easy discoverability.
• Engage potential customers in online communities, forums, and social media groups related to the industry.
• Participate in discussions to establish the brand as a helpful and knowledgeable presence.
• Share valuable content and insights to address customer questions and concerns.

Consideration & Evaluation

As customers progress, they enter a careful consideration and evaluation phase. Here, the spotlight is on showcasing the unique value of your products or services. You provide informative content, interactive demos, and expert insights to guide potential customers in decision-making. This stage is about addressing concerns, building trust, and offering compelling reasons for your offering being the best choice for them.

Typical activities for content generation and customer engagement supporting consideration and evaluation:

• Provide informative content like comparison guides.
• Offer interactive product demos or free trials.
• Showcase expert insights through webinars.
• Provide peer-to-peer recommendations and testimonials.
• Host AMAs (Ask Me Anything) or Q&A sessions to help potential customers make informed decisions.
• Address customer questions and issues in real time to guide their evaluation process.

Decision & Purchase

In the pivotal stage of decision and purchase, the focus shifts toward converting interest into action. This is where customers make the final choice and commit to a purchase. Here, you play a significant role in guiding the customer towards a transaction. Effective marketing programs and incentives can make a difference, convincing customers they’re making the right choice. You can provide “reasons to believe” through case studies, testimonials, or product specification details, reinforcing the product’s value proposition. 

Typical activities for content generation and customer engagement supporting decision and purchase:

• Display pricing and benefits on the website.
• Create user-friendly checkout processes.
• Implement limited-time promotions for urgency.
• Assist potential customers in community spaces, helping them overcome last-minute hesitations.
• Share user-generated content and success stories to showcase the product or service’s value.
• Facilitate connections between customers who have made similar purchases.
• Collaborate with sales teams to equip them with the necessary product knowledge.
• Create compelling sales collateral and materials to assist the sales process.

Post-Purchase Engagement and Support (aka Adoption & Retention)

After the purchase is complete, the journey doesn’t end – it transforms. You shift your attention to nurturing the relationship with the customer. Providing excellent post-purchase engagement and support is essential for customer satisfaction and retention. This stage involves personalized order confirmations, onboarding and nurturing communications, helpful getting-started resources, and responsive customer support to ensure customers feel valued and supported after their purchase.

Typical activities for content generation and customer engagement supporting adoption and retention:

• Send personalized order confirmations and updates.
• Share tips, guides, and troubleshooting resources to the right user at the right time.
• Offer responsive customer support channels.
• Provide a space for customers to share their experiences and seek assistance.
• Encourage customers to provide feedback and reviews.
• Deliver ongoing product education and updates through community resources.

Loyalty & Engagement

As customers evolve from one-time buyers to loyal patrons, you focus on cultivating loyalty and deepening the relationship. This stage involves strategic loyalty programs, special events, exclusive offers, and tailored content that rewards and acknowledges customers’ continued engagement. Here, you work to create a sense of community and belonging, fostering lasting connections with your audience.

Typical activities for content generation and customer engagement supporting loyalty and engagement:

• Design loyalty programs with rewards.
• Send personalized offers based on customer behavior.
• Create exclusive content for loyal users and customers.
• Nurture relationships with loyal customers by recognizing and appreciating their contributions.
• Organize exclusive events or discussions within communities for loyal customers.
• Encourage customers to share how they use the product and inspire others to do the same.

Advocacy & Referral

The journey culminates in the advocacy and referral stage, where delighted customers become brand advocates. By delivering exceptional experiences, you inspire customers to share their positive stories and recommend products or services to others. This word-of-mouth marketing can significantly influence new customers. You harness this momentum by implementing referral programs, sharing user-generated content, and celebrating the impact of your advocates.

Typical activities for content generation and customer engagement supporting advocacy and referral:

• Establish referral programs for customer advocacy.
• Encourage user-generated content through campaigns.
• Share customer success stories as testimonials.
• Leverage your online communities to identify and nurture potential brand advocates.
• Run referral programs to encourage word-of-mouth referrals.
• Celebrate and highlight customer success stories.

55 Ways to Use Generative AI for Marketing

Tools offering generative AI for marketing come into play at every stage of this journey. They allow you to make smarter, more effective decisions and adjust your strategies to meet your customers’ needs. They can create personalized emails, blog posts, social media updates, and more, significantly enhancing your marketing efforts’ efficiency, quality, and effectiveness. This can lead to higher conversion rates, stronger customer relationships, and more successful campaigns with less effort and time.

15 Ways to use Generative AI for Awareness & Discovery

Marketing professionals can achieve remarkable results by utilizing generative AI for marketing in the awareness and discovery stage of the customer journey. Its powerful tools make outreach more effective and personalized, generating intrigue and reaching a wider audience. Here are fifteen ways generative AI for marketing can drive transformation in this stage: 

1. Content Ideas: Generate creative ideas for social media posts, blog topics, and other content.
2. Content Variations: Create multiple variations of a piece of content for A/B testing.
3. Trend Analysis: Analyze trends and consumer sentiment across social media to guide strategy.
4. Influencer Matching: Identify potential influencers who align with your brand’s values and target audience.
5. Brand Voice: Analyze existing content and replicate your brand’s tone, style, and voice – ensuring all communications are unified and resonate with the intended audience.
6. Branding Elements: Analyze your existing content and design elements to generate cohesive, brand-aligned visuals and text, ensuring consistency across all marketing platforms.
7. Brand Storytelling: Suggest creative ways to tell your brand’s story, craft consistent messaging, and generate content that resonates with your brand’s identity.
8. Thought Leadership: Provide deep insights from vast data sets, identify emerging trends, generate innovative content ideas, and streamline the dissemination of thought leadership material across various platforms.
9. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Automate content creation, suggest relevant keywords, and optimize meta descriptions to streamline generating high-quality, keyword-rich content that resonates with search engines and engages audiences.
10. Social Media Campaigns: Crafting engaging campaigns on social platforms to increase brand visibility.
11. Paid Advertising: Running targeted ads to reach a wider audience and drive traffic to your brand’s platforms.
12. Audience Insights: Analyze data to identify the most effective platforms and times to engage the target audience.
13. Personalization: Assist in tailoring content and messaging for your customer segments.
14. Advanced Analytics and Recommendations: Monitor and report on the effectiveness of your content and provide valuable actionable insights to optimize and improve your marketing strategies for the future.
15. Rapid Crisis Response: Develop preemptive strategies and ensuring effective communication during crisis moments to maintain brand reputation.

10 Ways to use Generative AI for Consideration & Evaluation

Generative AI for marketing plays a pivotal role in the consideration and evaluation stage of the customer journey by creating tailored and insightful content that addresses potential customers’ specific needs and concerns. Generative AI equips customers with valuable information to confidently assess different options and make well-informed decisions by automating the creation of comparison materials, informative guides, and expert insights. Here are ten ways generative AI for marketing can drive transformation in this stage: 

1. Quality Content at Scale: Rapidly generate large amounts of high-quality content.
2. Virtual Demos: Create interactive virtual product demos for a more immersive experience.
3. Review Summaries: Analyze and summarize customer reviews to extract critical insights.
4. Competitor Insights: Analyze competitors’ offerings to identify gaps and opportunities for differentiation.
5. Customized Recommendations: Provide personalized product recommendations based on user preferences.
6. Personalization: Assist in tailoring content and messaging for different customer segments.
7. Feature Highlighting: Identify and emphasize key product features for marketing materials.
8. Ad Copy Generation: Create compelling ad copy for different channels.
9. Audience Insights: Analyze data to identify the most effective platforms and times to engage the target audience.
10. Events and Webinars: Suggest key topics, generate project plans, and automate the post-production of replay materials.

12 Ways to use Generative AI for Decision & Purchase

As we delve deeper into the customer journey, let’s focus on the pivotal decision and purchase stage and how generative AI for marketing can revolutionize the marketing approaches in this crucial phase. This is where potential customers express their willingness to buy by actively researching and comparing different options. Here are twelve ways generative AI for marketing can drive transformation in this stage:

1. Dynamic Pricing: Optimize pricing based on real-time demand and competitor pricing.
2. Checkout Optimization: Streamline the checkout process for a frictionless experience.
3. Price Comparison Tools: Generate automated price comparison tools for customers to make informed buying decisions. 
4. Product Comparison Tools: Offer your customers a nuanced and multifaceted product comparison to help them make a well-rounded, informed purchase decision.
5. Promotion Generation: Suggest compelling limited-time offers or discount strategies.
6. Upsell Strategies: Suggest further product upgrades or services during purchase.
7. Cross-Sell Recommendations: Suggest complementary products during the purchase journey.
8. Customized Product Configurations: Create product configurations tailored to customers’ needs and tastes. 
9. Inventory-Based Product Recommendations: Recommend product configurations based on existing inventory or specific technology you are eager to promote. 
10. Conversation Automation: Automate customer conversations with natural language processing (NLP) tools like chatbots. 
11. Sales Enablement Content: Generate sales presentations, pitch decks, and product sheets.
12. Competitor Insights: Provide real-time insights on how the product compares to competitors.

7 Ways to use Generative AI for Adoption & Retention

The adoption and retention stage is where you engage with customers and create an atmosphere of trust. In this part of the customer journey, AI tools can help you generate personalized experiences tailored to customers’ needs and interests. Here are eight ways generative AI for marketing can drive transformation in this stage: 

1. Customized Onboarding Experiences: Create custom onboarding experiences to introduce customers to the product or service.
2. Onboarding Guides: Create personalized onboarding guides for new customers. 
3. Personalized Support Services (aka Chatbots): Provide personalized support services to customers via AI-powered chatbots. 
4. Automated Feature Development: Design and develop features based on customer feedback.
5. FAQ Expansion: Analyze customer questions to suggest additions to the FAQs.
6. Proactive Alerts: Identify potential issues and proactively reach out to offer assistance with the right content at the right time.
7. Relevant and Personalized Notifications: Send customers notifications based on their past behavior and interests. 

6 Ways to use Generative AI for Loyalty & Engagement

The loyalty and engagement stage is about cultivating a long-term relationship with your customers, and here we’ll explore seven ways generative AI for marketing can play a critical role in bolstering customer loyalty and enhancing engagement:

1. Automated Engagement Activities: Generate automated surveys and contests to engage customers and reward loyalty. 
2. Feedback Analysis: Analyze feedback to identify trends and areas for improvement.
3. AI-Powered Product Recommendations: Generate product recommendations based on customer behavior and preferences. 
4. AI-Driven Personalized Messaging: Automatically generate personalized messages with a human touch that will resonate with each customer individually. 
5. Automated Reward Programs and Incentives: Automatically create reward programs offering customers exclusive discounts, coupons, and loyalty points. 
6. Customer Service Automation: Generate automated customer service chatbots that handle most of the routine customer inquiries. 

5 Ways to use Generative AI for Advocacy & Referral

As we delve into the final stage of the customer journey, advocacy and referral, the focus shifts towards transforming satisfied customers into brand advocates. This crucial phase encourages customers to share their positive experiences and refer your brand to others. Here are five ways generative AI for marketing can help you create a positive ripple effect for your brand’s recognition and growth:

1. Advocate Identification: Identify potential advocates based on engagement patterns.
2. Content Suggestion: AI can assist in generating user-generated content prompts.
3. Automated Referral Programs: Generate automated referral programs that reward customers for referring their friends or colleagues to your brand. 
4. AI-Powered Advocacy Programs: Generate automated advocacy programs to recognize customers for promoting your brand on all channels. 
5. Community Engagement Ideas: Offer innovative ways to engage the community and foster advocacy.

Conclusion

The customer journey is an integral part of your business, and leveraging the power of generative AI for marketing can help you along every step. From understanding and engaging with customers to personalizing incentives and incentivizing loyalty, tools offering generative AI for marketing provide many possibilities to enhance your customers’ experience. 

At the same time, you’ll need to stay up-to-date on the latest trends in generative AI for marketing and use this knowledge to your advantage. By remaining informed about the latest AI technologies and how they can optimize your customer journey, you can ensure your campaigns and engagements will be as successful as possible. This will help you build deeper customer relationships and provide them with a sense of satisfaction and trust that will keep them coming back for more.

With generative AI for marketing powering your marketing strategies, you are not only staying ahead in the innovation game but also crafting meaningful customer journeys that echo your brand’s commitment to excellence and customer satisfaction.