Can Old School Marketing Work in The Age of AI?

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To most people reading this, the immediate response would be that AI is going to take over, and very little human intervention will be needed ever again.

After all, AI marketing tools are just getting better and better, right? They are convenient, cheaper than paying for labor, and more reliable.

The answer, however, might not be quite as simple as that…

So, will traditional online marketing work in the age of AI?

Here are a few things you may want to consider:

1. There are – for now – some limits to what AI can do well.

Yes, there are expert prompt engineers who are able to generate great content from AI tools. But for the average small business owner, generating prompts of 500 or 1,000 words to ensure content quality is not an option.

Consider the number of variables you have to address in each prompt – even if you can create it once and then use it as a template:

a. Your ideal customer profile: The AI needs to know who the content is aimed at – precisely – or it will generate generic content.

b. The specific aim of the content: Is it intended to be merely informational content? Should it be copywritten for conversions? If so, conversions for what? Sales, mailing list optins or contact form submissions? Or is it aimed at attracting new followers on social media, and establishing your expertise?

c. Where the content is to be used: While your ideal customers may share several key characteristics in general, each social media platform has its own culture. What works on one may not work well on the other.

For instance, for one of our clients, using the same content on Instagram and Tiktok resulted in her getting lots more exposure, engagement and clients from Tiktok than from Instagram, despite similarly sized followings. And that is despite the fact that her ideal client is 35 to 55 years of age, and Tiktok is mostly made up of younger users.

As such, you may need to create different prompt templates for different platforms to compensate for it.

d. The level of awareness of the visitor or viewer: Where is the person viewing the content on their buyer journey? Do they even know that they have a situation that needs solving? Or do they know about the situation, but don’t know that a solution exists? Or do they know that solutions exist, and they are trying to figure out which solution is the best for their situation?

e. The tone of voice and use of language: Not only does the tone of voice need to mirror yours in order to be perceived as authentic, but the language usage needs to be relatable to the audience you want to reach. Depending on which area you serve, some general, generic use of language may simply come across as being out of touch with your ideal customer or client.

On top of that, how do you want to come across? Friendly, professional, or quirky? Pushing too far in any given direction may – depending on who you serve – alienate your prospective audience.

f. How do you ensure uniqueness? We are talking about AI here. Unless you create prompts that will change the outcome, AI will spit out the same content that it created for the previous person who asked the same question.

2. All major platforms are working hard to identify AI generated content:

Everybody from Google to Tiktok to Medium.com  is taking aim at AI generated content. Again, there are a few things to consider:

a. AI generated content needs to be declared: Some platforms feel that visitors have the right to know if content is AI generated. Having a “generated by AI” label on top of your content might not inspire many people to read or view it.

b. All of these platforms are using your AI generated content to train their own AI models – to detect AI generated content.

One can only assume that at some point, it will be used to reduce the exposure of AI generated content. And it’s only fair – on places like Pinterest, many platform users are already complaining that AI generated pins are taking over their feeds. Given the potential to scale content generation using AI, it is easy to see how the internet is becoming cluttered with AI content.

c. Because of the fact that AI often repeats itself when generating similar content, your rankings in Google and social media search engines are also subject to additional scrutiny for duplicate or similar content.

If you generate large volumes of AI generated content, even some of your own social media posts and blog posts may seem “very similar” to these search engines after a while, resulting in reduced exposure for perceived duplicate content.

3. AI can generate and post it for you – but it cannot be you:

In most cases, people who use AI generated content simply have their systems set up, and they let the run and forget about it.

In some cases, you may be able to get away with it.

But what happens if one of your posts do very well, and someone asks an important question? Everybody who sees the post after the question was asked will see that there has been no response from you yet.

It can be even more damaging if the unanswered comment is a customer complaint. Imagine those accumulating over time…

How badly will it hurt your brand? It depends on the platform. On X, the tweet is usually forgotten within minutes. On Linkedin, a post will remain visible for a week or more, on Pinterest it can last for a year or more, and on Youtube (not shorts) it can remain visible for a decade or more.

So where does all of this leave YOU?

Well, let’s just say it is complicated.

You will have to take a long hard look at the people you are trying to reach, and what their expectations are.

In addition to that, if you want to stick with AI content, you will need to be able to differentiate yourself – whether it be through topics, content depth, or presentation. Not to mention that you have to ensure that you are not putting out duplicate content, or repetitive generic content.

And – this one goes for both AI generated and human-driven marketing – be present on social media, even if only for a few minutes a day.

For some small business owners, it will also be a question of affordability. If you cannot afford to spend at least a few hundred dollars per month on marketing services (outsourced or in-house), using AI for marketing may be your only option.

But if you do that, just keep in mind that “what you pay for is what you get”. And in the long run, the damage to your brand might be much more than the amount you saved while using it.

At the end of the day, there is a reason why bigger businesses use AI as a tool, but not as a marketing agency. They use AI to make things happen faster, but not to “make everything happen”.

While genuine old school marketing might not exist any more, old school marketing using a bit of help from AI is the new norm.