To help brands market themselves in the age of AI, we asked business owners and marketing managers this question for their best advice. From creating genuine connections to personalizing your customer service, there are several suggestions that may help you reach more customers for the next quarter.
Here are ten tips to be more human in the age of AI:
- Create Genuine Connections
- Resist Automating Everything
- Forefront Improvements to Productivity
- Post Employee + Customer Profiles on Social Media
- Strategize Your AI Processes
- Personalize Your Customer Service
- Show Your Followers Your Personality
- Emphasize the People Behind the Business
- Highlight Your Humanitarian Efforts
- Use Tech to Enhance Communication
- AI Can Help Humanize Connection
Create Genuine Connections
Having that personal touch is a quality that consumers look for in the brands that they choose to buy from or do business with. Although artificial intelligence can streamline operations, there is nothing like having a genuine human connection. Brands can be more human by communicating with their customers through having real people answering calls and messages. Having that connection resonates with your customers and builds a relationship causing them to remain loyal.
Henry Babicheknko, Stomadent
Resist Automating Everything
That’s easy – don’t automate everything! I know lots of businesses want to automate as much as possible to increase their profit margins, but the truth is that people enjoy working with and buying from other people. Knowing that there is a real person processing your request versus a robot makes a huge difference to the end users. That is not to say that you shouldn’t automate anything, you should simply be very picky about what you chose to replace with AI.
Dale Gillespie, Tic Watches
Forefront Improvements to Productivity
Consumers generally approach artificial intelligence (AI) with apprehension. To help relieve that apprehension, brands need to position the benefits of what AI can help a consumer accomplish. For example, Lightkey highlights how our AI-powered grammar correction and text prediction software can assist users in writing quickly and confidently in email and word processing. Our software learns user typing patterns so that it can offer up spelling revisions and multi-word prediction that includes punctuation. By filling in the blanks and defining the limits of technologies, brands can better connect with consumers.
Guy Katabi, Lightkey
Post Employee and Customer Profiles on Social Media
One core value we have is “You Are Unique” – which is defined by respecting the uniqueness of every human being. We aim to practice this value by posting employee and sometimes customer profiles on our Instagram account (in fact, these profiles are pretty much all we post!). Not only are these profiles a great way to showcase the people behind our “digital” business, but they are also great ways to attract other job seeking candidates and like-minded small businesses to our company. For anyone looking to humanize their business, consider featuring the humans who make up your company on social media.
Brett Farmiloe, Markitors
Strategize Your AI Processes
Artificial intelligence is incredibly useful in some areas of business, but in others it is more important to have a human element. My advice would be to map out your business processes and decide which bucket each process belongs to. For example, social media management does not produce great results when controlled by bots – in fact, you are penalized for it if caught. Because of this, it makes sense to have a human behind the screen, creating content, featuring real people in your organization, and of course engaging with your followers. These informed decisions will ensure your audience is taken care of during the most important times in their customer journey.
Francesca Yardley, Threads
Personalize Your Customer Service
In the age of artificial intelligence, the way to be more human as a brand is to focus on all your touchpoints with your consumers. This means personalizing your customer service responses, improving your various marketing tactics, and more. Even if there are automated responses to customers, there are ways to personalize these and create a more human-like experience. Focus on your brand’s tone of voice, and what writing you use in your communications efforts. This is, after all, where your audience is going to get that sense of a human brand. It’s also a good idea to have real human interaction where it’s needed most (e.g. customer service) to strengthen that bond between your brand and the consumers, as well as prevent frustration from inaccurate AI responses.
Tarah Darge, Time to Reply
Show Your Followers Your Personality
If you want to come off more human to your customers then you have to work on speaking in a direct and casual way in your social media posts and marketing campaigns. The business world has become so automated that all business\’s voices are coming off all in the same. Your interactions online should always be as organic as possible. You don\’t want to sound automated or planned. Posts need to be light-hearted and quippy to show everyone that you can relate to them instead of coming off as a big business. The better you can keep a small business feeling with your marketing strategy then the more likely your followers and customers will see you as a human than an organization.
Chris Gadek, AdQuick
Emphasize the People Behind the Business
It depends on exactly how you combine AI with your brand. In our case, we use AI to create customized skincare products for our customers. We also make sure to emphasize the backstory on how our business came to be. I was frustrated with not being able to find workable skincare products and then I found out through a specialist that customized skincare formulas are the key to improving skin. Our Co-Founder Amy Yuan was able to build a huge database of skincare information in order to use AI for creating customized skincare formulas, and now our business has grown. We make sure to emphasize the human element to this story – That trying to find the right skincare can often be frustrating, and this is why we are care a lot about what we do. As long as there is a real sense of enthusiasm behind your business, whether or not you use AI, your customers will sense this energy and feel more of a sense of connection with your product or service.
Ming Zhao, Proven Skincare
Highlight Your Humanitarian Efforts
Prioritize your humanitarian efforts. There are so many ways businesses can give back, and every business should look into charities and organizations they can help out at. A recent effort we made was the introduction of our first apparel item, the “Bread X Life Sweatshirt”. All proceeds of this item are going to the World Food Programme, an organization combating food insecurity globally. Not only does this get the word out about our company, but it goes towards our greater message of intuitive eating and humanitarianism.
William Schumacher, Uprising Food
Use Tech to Enhance Communication
After a year of isolation, the importance of human connection can’t be understated. Artificial intelligence can play a key role in helping you manage internal processes. It can even help you manage lead qualification. But when you greet customers with an automated reply, you\’re essentially saying “I don\’t have time for you. Leave a message and I\’ll get back to you at a time that suits me. In a 24/7 business landscape, that\’s just not accessible. Human connection is particularly vital in your customer support. Connection is about feeling heard. And even the most advanced AI in the world can’t offer your visitors that feeling. The very act of automating your interactions shows you’re not hearing your visitors. For true connection, you need real people ready to reach out and respond, whatever the channel. In short, use technology to enhance communication, not replace it.
Benjamin Graham, AnswerConnect
AI Can Help Humanize Connection
With the advancements of artificial intelligence’s ability to help businesses and brands expand, keeping a human touch is imperative. The rapid evolution of this advanced technology is not only creating challenges but also opportunities for the workspace.Τhe approach that businesses should follow is to create a winning balance between workforce empowerment and disrupting technologies. At Comidor, we value the people that are working with us by creating an atmosphere where people are still important and their efforts are recognized. At the same time the disruptive technologies we offer enable them to work faster and smarter.
Spiros Skolarikis, Comidor
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