According to the Content Marketing Institute, 61% of technology marketers say creating the right content for their audience is challenging.
This is hardly surprising given the sprawl of decision makers, budget holders and influencer groups over the years. In yesteryear things were much simpler, the balance of power sat in the IT tower. Decisions on technology purchases were sat firmly with the CTO or CIO so producing content that pushed their buttons was fairly straight forward.
Fast-forward to the present, the technology space is awash with products, services, solutions and architectures that are designed specifically for certain lines of business. In May of this year CMSwire reported that the MarTech space alone had swelled to over 14,100 solutions [hyperlink], so it’s no surprise that tech marketers are finding it difficult to create differentiated, relevant and valuable content that their prospects want to engage with, given the competition for eyeballs.
Is AI the answer to our content prayers?
With the explosion of AI into every tech application known to man, it’s no wonder that marketing has embraced generative AI like a returning relative from an overseas trip. Let’s face it, AI has been pitched to remove manual, repetitive and human centric tasks- content creation is no exception to this. The Content Marketing Institute continue in their benchmarking report that 79% of technology marketers use generative AI for content tasks and 48% use AI to write full first drafts. But this begs the question, is AI the golden goose we have all been searching for?
Well, if used correctly it can certainly remove a lot of the grunt work out of the process which is a huge plus given that 66% of tech marketers are faced with a lack of resources. However, in order to remain in control, marketing departments must adopt some form of guiderails around the use of AI in content production. These include but are not limited to:
- Ethical use of AI: Organisations should be transparent about AI-generated content in order to avoid bias and not to mislead audiences.
- Quality control: Human involvement should be applied to all AI generated content to ensure that brand tone of voice and quality standards are adhered to.
- Content authenticity: Ensure content feels like it’s been created by a human, making sure it’s authentic and adds value to the audience.
- Content validation: Check to make sure that references, statistics and sources are relevant, up to date and correct.
- Data privacy, security and compliance: Make sure that all content complies with copyright law, data protection and compliance regulations.
Content should be human-centric.
No doubt about it, AI has aided content creation and has certainly streamlined the process, although to be truly authentic, marketers still need to apply the human touch. Consumers often challenge and question the information they are presented with, so structuring arguments that support these and applying empathy, elevation and context to these points can promote authenticity.
People buy people, so if your content comes across as synthetic your audience may not only switch off but, on a deeper level, possibly question your products or even worse, your brand.
At The Rubicon Agency we craft human-centric strategic content that informs, educates and inspires. With over 25 years of B2B marketing agency experience working within the tech sector, we know what it takes to cut through the competition.
