How to balance AI and the human touch in marketing

Ever since generative AI’s floodgates opened, it’s been both embraced and feared - will it take our jobs, or improve them dramatically?

McKinsey thinks the latter, saying, “Gen AI is making it possible to revolutionize consumer marketing as we currently know it. At an individual-company level, marketing campaigns that once required months of content design, insight generation, and customer targeting can be rolled out in weeks or even days, often with at-scale personalization and automated testing.”

At Spitfire, we tend to agree - but with one key difference in opinion: AI still needs the human touch.

Here’s what we cover in this article:

1. The role of AI in modern marketing
2. Where the human touch matters
3. Examples of ways to use AI in marketing
4. The AI tools we use

The role of AI in modern marketing 

AI has revolutionised marketing by making it more efficient, giving marketers the ability to spend more time focusing on the creative elements. Using AI tools give marketers the ability to:

• Save time: Generate copy and images quickly, allowing marketers to focus on strategy and creativity.
• Ensure consistency: AI can help ensure that your brand voice is being utilised consistently across all your marketing efforts. 
• Use your time effectively: using AI tools for time-consuming tasks like copy translations can give your team the ability to get campaigns out quicker. 

However, any tool is only as good as the way you use it. Remember, “garbage in, garbage out” so when using these tools, you need to ensure that everything is being prompted with intention and checked by a human. 

"AI is not just a tool; it's a partner that amplifies our capabilities and frees us to be more creative and strategic." - Marketing Visionary

Ultimately, the role of AI in marketing is to be your additional team member, not replace team members. If you’re looking at how AI can be a part of your team we recommend keeping these points in mind:

1. Start small and scale gradually: Test AI tools on specific campaigns or blog topics before scaling their use across broader operations.
   
   
2. Pair AI with a human: Make sure the unique insights of the human are being brought into prompts and use AI for initial drafts, but ensure a human review outputs to maintain quality, brand voice, accuracy, and authenticity.
   
   
3. Provide ongoing training: Equip marketing teams with the skills to work alongside AI tools effectively. This includes understanding AI capabilities and knowing when to intervene.
   
   
4. Be aware of what you’re putting into prompts: Prioritise data security, make sure you’re only inputting information into open AI tools that doesn’t contain customer data or company IP, as this could end up in the public domain.
   
   
5. Measure and adjust: Use analytics to track performance and stay adaptable. Use insights to refine strategies and prompts.

Where the Human Touch Matters

While AI is a great tool generating ideas and saving time, not everything is going to be made better by AI. In fact, using AI without knowing when to tap in the Human can be detrimental to your brand.

But how do you know when you’re going to make AI magic or not? Here are some tips on when a Human is vital:

• Thought leadership and goals: While AI tools like HubSpot’s Co-Pilot can draft content, you should absolutely ensure that a human with the knowledge about the topic is adapting your content to fit the business goals and to keep it unique from the other content tackling similar issues online. AI may generate ideas, but creativity, a strategic approach, and emotional connection remain uniquely human strengths.
  
  
• Complex problem-solving and emotions: Your AI teammate is never going to be able to placate an angry customer commenting on your social media posts or understand it needs to pivot if something breaks. So make sure your AI teammate is doing the generic lifting and your human team is covering emotionally nuanced topics and conversations. 
  
  
• Build trust through transparency: Customers want to know if they are speaking to an AI or a Human, if you have a chatbot on your website make sure it’s clear to the user that they are speaking to an AI, and make sure you have clear ways for people to speak to a human if they want to. 

If you really think about it, the real AI magic happens when human expertise and creativity meet, so human intervention is the backbone of a successful AI strategy.

Examples of ways to use AI in marketing

Let’s take a look at some of the ways marketers can use AI to drive better campaigns and where a human needs to come in:

1. Brainstorming Content Ideas that keep SEO in mind

BEST CASE: Generate fresh ideas to overcome writer’s block and jumpstart creativity, while still keeping SEO in mind
RISK: Generic, uninspired content that doesn’t reflect brand voice or offer any unique insights.

AI-powered tools, like HubSpot's content assistant and AI writing features, help marketers generate a wide array of content ideas quickly, offering you SEO driven content ideas and a general base for your blogs. When used well, AI content tools can help you grow your SEO and thought leadership. And, if you use HubSpot Content Hub, you can even add your brand voice to ensure brand consistency across all content pieces. 

We love this tool and use it ourselves, but the one thing to remember is that the ‘Human’ still holds the unique insights so your prompt needs to be where you shift your time. Most AI tools let you add prompts as long as 3000 characters so don’t be shy to input the value you, as a human, offer to the content. 

Spitfire Tip: don’t forget to keep Intent in mind when creating content, this is important for AI search.

2. Automate online interactions

BEST CASE: People can engage at a time that suits them
RISK: If not created correctly, people could get frustrated

AI-powered chatbots offer the opportunity for people to ask questions 24/7 , handling FAQs instantly. For example, when someone needs information about a product or service late at night, AI provides immediate answers, boosting satisfaction and reducing response times. However, for complex issues, human intervention remains essential.

When using an AI chatbot it’s key to ensure that the chatbot is set to tap in a human to problem-solve in a more complex way, but also needs to be able to offer the person a next step if a human is unavailable. Ultimately, AI should be used to offer more immediate responses, either through giving an answer or giving a next step.

3. Quickly build ad campaigns

BEST CASE: Quickly build ad campaigns that are more efficient
RISK: ‘Cookie cutter’ strategies that lack human creativity are easy to spot

AI campaign building tools allow marketers to build ad campaigns quickly by assisting in generating copy for ads and corresponding landing pages. This means that marketers can optimise their ROI through efficient campaigns that utilise SEO best practices.

But just like using AI for blogs, your prompt is your superpower. Just adding generic info into the AI tool will only produce generic ads. Bring in your focus for the ad and remember what would drive you to click on that ad.

4. Give your social media that little extra

BEST CASE: Quickly build social media content and jump on trends
RISK: Generic content leaves you lost in a sea of your competitors

It can be challenging as a social media team to keep fresh, exciting content flowing on your social media platforms. Especially if you are spending all your time immersed in the brand, finding fresh ways to say something can take time. With AI tools, it’s easy to generate fun new ideas and keep your posts focused on trends.

But remember that AI may not always be right and fact checking is a key role for the ‘Human’ working on the content. Don’t fall into the trap of “easy” social media ideas, keep them relevant to your brand and brand voice.

5. Give people what they want… faster

BEST CASE: Quickly convert content pieces into other formats
RISK: Some content doesn’t always work in all formats or might be offputting if it’s not edited for the format

AI tools now allow you to create a single piece of content and then convert it into other formats like podcasts, social posts, or images quickly. This is a great way to reduce the time spent on building content pieces and gives your team the time to focus on building new content.

But not every blog post is going to make a good podcast and not every AI tool will accurately capture nuance in an infographic. This is where your team needs to step in. Let the AI convert to the new format and then make sure you take the time to tweak and ensure the new format is consumable.

The AI tools we use

As a team we have a defined AI tech stack that we use to make our lives better, this includes ChatGPT, Fathom notetaker (this is a favourite for meetings), and Dall-E 3. But the one we use the most for marketing is HubSpot's AI-powered tools, which are specifically designed to enhance content creation while allowing us to maintain creativity and control over our brand voice. Here’s how we integrate them seamlessly into our processes:

1. Content Assistant for idea generation:
   We use the AI blog writer to help suggest blog topics which align with our SEO strategy and use it to form a base draft which our experts can add to.
   
   
2. Increase productivity:
   We use Breeze Copilot to take the admin out of content by using it to write blog meta descriptions, email subject lines, email preview text, and social media captions. And we use Remix to convert content into other formats (as mentioned above).
   
   
3. Prompt building:
   If you’re not an expert in prompting, it’s not always easy to think of where to start. HubSpot’s Breeze Copilot has predefined prompts which you can use as a base and then customise. This helps our team generate more effective prompts.
   
   
4. Consistency across content with Brand Voice:
   HubSpot’s Brand Voice feature is one we can’t use AI without. This feature allows us to input our specific brand voice with tone, writing style, and personality. This means that when a team member is trying to craft content, they can quickly convert their own words into the brand tone to ensure consistency in all our messages… yes, even with sales emails. 
   
   
5. Data-driven insights to inform ideas:
   If you know us, you know we’re all about the data, because HubSpot combines its AI tools with our CRM and marketing efforts, we use it to provide actionable insights based on audience behaviour, campaign performance, and engagement trends. We then use these insights to guide more content brainstorming.

For more details about HubSpot’s AI tools and how they empower marketers, visit HubSpot’s AI Overview. 

At the end of the day, we love using AI in marketing and it is a game-changer, just keep in mind that the human touch is essential for maintaining trust, creativity, and meaningful connections. The most successful marketers understand this balance, remembering that AI alone isn’t enough. The real magic happens when human expertise and creativity shape how AI is used.

Ready to explore how AI can elevate your campaigns without compromising the human touch? Contact us today for tailored solutions that maximise both technology and creativity.