Natural Language Processing (NLP) is on the brink of revolutionizing digital marketing. This burgeoning field of artificial intelligence (AI) is about extracting meaning from unstructured data, such as text and voice, to deliver hyper-personalized results. NLP will enable marketers to shift their focus from data collection to insight extraction and actionable recommendations.
This guide will explore how marketers can use NLP technology to craft their messages, design campaigns, and develop more effective strategies. We’ll also look at the rise of NLP-powered marketing technologies such as voice search, chatbots, and writing assistants.
What is NLP?
Natural Language Processing is a field of computer science that allows computers to translate human language into something the machine can understand. For example, when text or voice data is analyzed using NLP, a computer can understand the meaning and intent of the content. NLP is the practice of structuring information to enable computers to analyze it so that computers can make predictions based on a statistical model.
Computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum pioneered this field of artificial intelligence by developing the first NLP algorithms (called Eliza) that analyzed and generated telephone book data. Weizenbaum’s machine-learning algorithm utilized neural network computing, a mathematical model for pattern recognition.
NLP is used in various applications to extract meaning from unstructured data, including speech and text. In addition, NLP can recognize images and identify information based on keywords and metadata extracted from media data.
How Marketers Benefit from NLP
Marketers have been using NLP for content discovery, sentiment analysis, and customer service, and this AI marketing technology transforms how businesses build relationships with their target audiences.
Content Discovery
NLP technology enables marketers to automatically identify content on their landing pages and social media platforms relevant to a targeted audience. This intelligence can be used to create personalized advertising campaigns and assist in the development of search engine optimization (SEO) strategies.
NLP uses machine-learning algorithms to analyze the content on your website or mobile app and identify words, terms, and topics that your core audience is interested in. This capability can help marketers optimize their marketing strategies for more effective engagement.
Sentiment Analysis
NLP enables marketers to analyze the tone, emotion, and sentiment of the content they’re reading, listening to, or watching. NLP-powered sentiment analysis uses facial, speech, and text recognition engines to identify emotional states or personality traits such as sarcasm, positivity, and negative emotions. NLP helps understand the mood of a targeted audience and see if their preferences align with your brand.
CRM & Customer Service
Chatbots and intelligent assistants have become more widely adopted. As a result, NLP tools will play an increasingly essential role in providing businesses with human-like customer service and CRM capabilities. It’s a natural fit if you consider how people use language to communicate with each other.
To be more precise about how marketers can benefit from NLP, here are more use cases and examples:
- Generate thousands of unique variations of marketing messages to test which resonates best with audiences and create more engaging experiences.
- Extract insights from data sources, such as call-center transcripts, emails, surveys, and social media posts, to understand audience intent and design better campaigns. NLP software can analyze language patterns and phrases.
- Empower customers with self-service. Customers can self-service positions, such as canceling a subscription or inquiring about a product. NLP can help businesses deliver more comprehensive customer service solutions by providing customized and engaging responses.
- Personalize content and interactions for customers. NLP-enabled customer service tools can ask clients questions like “How was your hiring experience?” and give them a customized response. NLP can also take that existing data and analyze it to tailor a message to different users based on their interests.
- Turn text into video and audio for video chatbots. NLP can translate text into video or audio, enabling businesses to turn written content into engaging virtual assistants.
NLP and Conversational Marketing
Conversational marketing is a type of digital marketing that focuses on communicating with customers and prospects through natural language. In the past, it was challenging to understand where conversational marketing began. The reason is that there was no easy way to analyze customers’ text and audio data using natural language processing techniques, which required expensive computational processes.
However, NLP has advanced to the point where marketers can parse massive amounts of unstructured data in real time using cloud-based technologies. In addition, this technology has opened up a range of innovative conversational marketing strategies, such as live chatbots and intelligent SEO writers.
Let’s review some of the NLP-powered conversational marketing technologies and tools available for marketers today.
Speech Recognition and Voice Search
According to Forrester, speech recognition NLP is expected to become the most-used conversational marketing technology in the next few years. As a result, the worldwide market for voice assistants will potentially grow to $17.5 billion by 2025.
The ability to access voice data from an NLP-powered speech recognition tool, such as Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, and Cortana, has shown to be a convenient and efficient way for marketers to interact with customers. Voice assistants are used on websites, mobile apps, and even for live events and telemarketing.
Besides, voice assistants will bring customers a more natural and engaging experience. For example, they can use voice search to read product reviews, send customized emails, and provide personalized customer service.
Intelligent Chatbots and Conversational AI Assistants
In conversational marketing, a chatbot is an interactive chat-based AI agent that answers customers’ questions, interacts with them on websites, apps, and social media, or triggers other actions. These chatbots aim to solve real customer problems, collect feedback, and respond to queries in natural language.
According to Deloitte, more than 75% of businesses will use chatbots and AI assistants in their digital marketing efforts by 2025. Chatbots ensure customer service excellence and help companies improve their conversational marketing strategies.
By using a conversational AI assistant powered by NLP, businesses can drive their customer-service objectives in the following ways:
- Provide accurate answers to basic questions about the business’s products and services.
- Listen to customers’ complaints and problems.
- Perform tasks, such as scheduling appointments.
- Retrieve contact information from businesses’ databases and share it with customers.
- Measure customer satisfaction, customer churn rate, and other key performance indicators.
- Improve sales strategies and marketing efforts.
Translation and Persuasion
Conversational marketing of the future will require companies to provide accurate translations and persuasive communications. The ability to process large amounts of information in real time through NLP has allowed marketers to translate text more effectively into multiple languages for customers.
For example, when a customer uses a virtual assistant, the NLP technology can translate her conversation into different languages, such as French and Japanese. Natural language technology can also convert written content into speech.
NLP-powered persuasion technology can help companies build relationships with customers despite which language the customer speaks. It can prompt users to take action by embedding product and service information in conversations, such as delivering coupons or sending products that customers have requested.
SEO and Content Writing Assistants
NLP-powered content writing software, such as Rytr, Copy.AI, and Writer.com, helps marketers generate highly engaging and relevant content, including SEO blogs, white papers, eBooks, emails, social posts, and other online content.
In 2022, The Digital Marketing Institute reported that 65% of marketers adopt AI-powered writing assistants as part of their SEO and content marketing strategy. These assistants help create unique, high-quality marketing copies while saving time and cost by 30%, which is a significant improvement.
On the other hand, AI-generated text can negatively impact SEO and content writing. As a result, Google prohibits using (GPT-3) writing tools. The company has recently updated its Webmaster Guidelines accordingly.
Lead Analysis and Sales Intelligence
Marketers use NLP-powered text analytics tools to extract insights from customers’ past communication. In this situation, the NLP technology can match customers’ words and phrases with internal databases and give insights about customers’ preferences, purchases, emails, and other information.
Sales intelligence software analyzes customer sentiments and transforms them into highly predictive messages. Marketers and salespeople use this information to tailor personalized sales pitches quickly. Marketing automation systems will help deliver the right message to the right audiences at scale.
Wrapping up: Why You Should Adopt NLP in Your Marketing Today
Artificial intelligence is the future of online marketing, and marketers are already using NLP-powered tools to develop better strategies, content, and customer relationships.
As new applications of NLP-powered technology emerge, businesses will have the tools they need to achieve their marketing objectives. Adopting NLP tools will improve the quality and quantity of content created for marketing purposes. In addition, it will enable marketers to provide better customer service and make more informed decisions about their businesses.
So there you have it. The next time someone asks you, “why should I adopt NLP tools in my marketing strategy?” Tell them that the future of digital marketing is here, and your business needs to be at the forefront of development.
