Winner of 2022 Creative Problem Solving Award, Certified BigCommerce Partner, B2B Specialized Partner.
When a user goes through an eCommerce customer journey[1] , starting from the discovery, product research, andselecting the products, all the way up to completing a purchase and post-purchase engagement, they go through vast amounts of textual, visual, and interactive content. All these different types of content work together to help the customers form a perception of your business and brand, make an impression of your products and services, gain knowledge about your product offerings, their features, applications, and use cases, and convince them to purchase from your online store. So content is the key to lead generation, sales conversion, and customer retention.
However, generating content with consistent quality in line with your brand requirements, core values, and image is a monumental ongoing task. It takes a great deal of human effort and resources to keep churning out engaging, high-quality content consistently. As a result, consistency in both content quality and quantity has been the differentiating factor that sets small companies and start-ups apart from established corporations.
The advent of generative AI has turned the table and opened up a whole new world of opportunities for small businesses to create unlimited content. This article explores how generative AI revolutionizes content creation and brand management in eCommerce.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming content creation and brand consistency in the following ways.
Search engine optimization increases the visibility and search engine rankings of your eCommerce site. You must optimize all your content on the site for search, making it easy for people to find your brand and your products. SEO involves finding the right keywords and using them at the right frequency across your content. AI-powered SEO tools can streamline this process significantly.
Product descriptions help customers understand the product features, benefits, and suitability to their use case. So, writing clear product descriptions is crucial for eCommerce success. However, when you have a large inventory, writing accurate product descriptions with a consistent brand tone and style for every product is a massive challenge. The problem is further complicated when you adopt a multi-channel sales strategy and need multiple versions of those product descriptions for different platforms. It can be time-consuming and resource-intensive. This is where Artificial Intelligence comes in.
GenAI content creation and brand management tools like Jasper AI pull data from various sources, such as publicly available web data, internal databases, and user-generated content, and automate the creation of consistent, high-quality SEO-optimized product descriptions at scale in multiple languages for different platforms and markets, increasing efficiency and cost savings. They also let you customize your content to various tones and styles to ensure brand consistency.
While data collection and analysis of customer behavior, product search, purchase history, and personal preferences pave the way for personalization[2] , artificial intelligence automates and supercharges these processes to enable hyper-personalization of content. AI algorithms analyze historical and real-time data to uncover patterns, trends, and demographics on a deeper level, predict future needs, and enable you to proactively create highly personalized AI-generated content, consistent with your brand voice.
GenAI content creation and brand management tools for eCommerce can generate tailor-made content to suit individual customer preferences. For example, AI personalization engines and Content Management Systems (CMS) create personalized product pages with dynamic content, such as different product images, videos, descriptions, prices, discounts, reviews, call-for-action, etc., for various customer segments based on their demographics, location, operating system, type of device, or stage in their eCommerce customer journey. Similarly, generative AI can generate hyper-personalized product recommendations, email communication, knowledge resources, and more.
Images, 3D renderings, VR/AR models, and overlays for interactive try-ons simulate the in-store product experience and help your customers get a clear view of your products from every angle, establishing your brand identity and delivering product experiences close to the real world. Creating these different types of visual content for every product, editing them, and optimizing for your eCommerce website are monumental tasks that cost time and resources.
GenAI content creation and brand management tools create stunning graphics, logos, and illustrations out of the box. Machine Learning algorithms verify their alignment with your brand guidelines and aesthetic, ensuring high-quality visuals while maintaining consistency across various platforms, saving time and resources.
AI text-to-image generators can convert simple text prompts into custom images that match your brand vision. AI image modifiers allow you to add elements, remove backgrounds, and create unique product visuals, providing a visually appealing and cohesive brand presentation across all marketing channels. For instance, Canva uses AI algorithms to remove the background, edit the image, add visual elements such as plants and decorative objects, recompose the image, and add effects to transform an ordinary mobile image into a professional-grade product image.
Video and animation build on the impact of product images and 3D models to create a more immersive experience. However, creating video content can be expensive and out-of-reach for small organizations. Artificial Intelligence significantly streamlines the production of videos and animations and makes them more affordable.
Generative AI tools can generate scripts based on a brief. The script can be fine-tuned and fed into AI video production tools such as Synthesia to produce videos for various purposes, including product demos, user guides, tutorials, customer reviews, and more. These tools maintain a consistent visual and narrative style and ensure alignment with your brand aesthetic.
Generative AI tools like Maverickalso help you create personalized AI-generated content. You can upload just one video addressing a customer by name, and this tool uses that as a reference to generate an endless number of unique, personalized AI videos at scale, addressing each customer by name.
Multi-national eCommerce businesses require translation and localization. AI translation tools such as DeepL accurately translate all the textual content in your eCommerce website, including product descriptions, blogs, customer reviews, and marketing materials, into various languages while maintaining the original tone and style. They localize content effectively and adapt it to various cultural contexts and languages, ensuring a consistent brand voice across different markets. AI transcription tools like Sonic automate the transcription of podcasts, webinars, and interviews.
Building a brand identity and customer trust in the brand requires effective, personalized interaction at various stages of the eCommerce customer journey. AI chatbots and virtual assistants leverage natural language processing (NLP) to tailor personal messaging and communication to individual customers while maintaining the brand voice. They provide personalized recommendations, reply to complex queries, offer customer support, and initiate conversations based on previous interactions.
AI chatbots, like the ones from Drift, give human-like real-time responses by learning and remembering customer preferences, simulating the experience of interacting with a salesperson.
Email marketing involves customer segmentation based on various factors and customizing email communication to all those segments for marketing and engagement purposes. AI makes these processes effective through automation and personalization, enhancing cold outreach emails, personalized product recommendations, promotional offers, and abandoned cart reminders.
For instance, AI tools on the Hubspot platform segment customers based on new criteria, such as buyer personas and lead scoring, to identify new opportunities and engage customers with the most suitable messaging. AI email writers such as Copy.ai can automate content creation for email marketing, writing compelling subject lines and promotional copy, and improving existing drafts, optimizing the communication to resonate with the target audience. By adopting these innovative AI tools, you can maintain consistent communication, improve email open rates, and drive higher engagement and conversion rates.
Periodic social media posts capture attention, spark conversations, and improve customer engagement. AI social media post generators like Narrato streamline the process and cut design and distribution costs. Generative AI tools like Adcreative.ai automate the generation of conversion-focused ads and social media posts by repurposing content, creating new posts based on inputs, and generating platform-specific content with the right hashtags. These generative AI tools can also create social media posts, analyze engagement metrics, and suggest optimal posting times.
AI-driven data analytics provides deep insights into customer behavior and content performance, by analyzing metrics such as click-through rates, conversion rates, and customer feedback. These insights enable eCommerce businesses to refine their content strategy and bring all the content in line with the brand’s objectives.
AI, especially generative AI, automates content creation for blogs, product descriptions, and social media. It reduces human effort, enhances creativity and consistency, saves time, and boosts productivity for content creators in the eCommerce space.
AI helps in optimizing branding strategies by analyzing consumer behavior and enabling personalization to deliver what different customer segments expect from the brand. It utilizes machine learning to craft targeted campaigns for those customer segments, create text and visual content for those campaigns, and verify compliance of the content with brand guidelines, enhancing brand recognition and loyalty.
AI drives content marketing by analyzing data to identify trends, generate engaging content, and optimize distribution. It improves the visibility of your eCommerce website by consistently delivering SEO-optimized content in the form of blog posts, social media updates, and more, ensuring relevance and maximizing engagement.
AI is strategic in brand development because it provides deep, real-time insights into consumer preferences, which was not possible before. It enables eCommerce businesses to fine-tune their branding strategy and target various customer segments precisely, delivering the right message that resonates with various customer segments, and optimizing the brand identity. Generative AI bolsters this brand identity by crafting customized content and campaigns and fostering strong connections with the audience.