How a Virtual Assistant Can Help with Digital Marketing

Explore the benefits of online AI assistants for business.

It gets difficult (if not impossible) to imagine modern workflows in digital marketing without any use of virtual AI-powered assistants. Many tasks, such as handling customer inquiries, managing ad campaigns, and collecting analytical insights, can be handled by a modern robot.

As we witness the dawn of AI-powered world, let's take a look at how virtual online assistants work and how their features can help companies across various industries in their marketing efforts.

Table of content

What is AI virtual assistant and how it works

An online assistant can perform various actions, provide information, and engage in conversations. Powered by sophisticated, continually evolving algorithms, such as natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML), AI virtual assistants can interpret human language, learn from interactions, and adapt their responses accordingly. They can exist as built-in solutions in a wide range of devices, from smartphones and smart speakers to computers and even automobiles.

How does an AI assistant work?

1. A bot receives input from a user (it can be in the form of speech, text, or an image).
2. User's input is processed by algorithms that analyze the language, identify the user's intent, and determine the appropriate response.
3. The process of providing a response to a user's input often requires accessing a large knowledge base, interacting with other apps, or controlling connected devices.
4. The AI assistant then delivers the response or executes the required actions.

The more an AI assistant is used, the more it learns about the user's preferences and habits, enabling it to provide a more personalized and efficient experience over time.

Virtual digital assistants market value

As of 2024, the global virtual digital assistants market is experiencing a period of significant growth. According to Precedence Research, the global virtual assistant market will reach approximately USD 178.80 billion by 2034, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24% from 2024 to 2034. The rapid improvement in the quality of AI models promotes more widespread adoption of AI online assistants for a wider range of tasks.

Types of AI virtual assistants

There are many types of AI virtual assistants, each of them tailored to meet specific needs and functions within the scope of digital marketing activities. Let's take a look at their most prevalent types.

Chatbots

Chatbots are capable of interacting with users through text or voice interfaces, often embedded in websites, social media platforms, or messaging apps. Such online tools can provide instant customer support, engage with website visitors to collect their contact information, qualify leads, and offer personalized product recommendations. By automating these interactions, chatbots can significantly enhance the user experience and conversion rates of an online shop or virtually any other kind of business.

Voice assistants

Amazon's Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple's Siri are just some of the online bots that utilize natural language processing to understand and respond to voice commands. They facilitate hands-free customer interactions and can automate daily tasks such as setting reminders and scheduling meetings. This way, they make it easier for their users to manage their daily activities efficiently.

Content generators

Tools like OpenAI's GPT-4 can help with summarizing large texts in seconds, overcoming writer's block, ensuring accuracy and consistency when creating marketing copy or email newsletters. Meanwhile, Midjourney, DALL-E, and Stable Diffusion are just some of AI image generators that can help content creators with high-quality visuals for marketing and explanatory purposes.

Task-specific AI assistants

There are numerous examples of specialized online AI assistants available today. From streamlining sales processes to revolutionizing customer support, these purpose-built AI assistants redefine how companies operate. Among those who can benefit from these digital solutions:

• Sales teams can utilize AI-powered tools to identify promising leads, cultivate customer relationships, and automate outreach, enhancing sales performance.
• Marketers can personalize customer interactions, analyze campaign effectiveness, and drive sales conversions through marketing automation.
• Customer support departments can use AI-powered chatbots that are capable of resolving common inquiries and free up human agents to work on more complex issues.

How various industries benefit from virtual AI assistants

Just as the range of tasks that virtual AI assistants can handle is constantly expanding, so does the range of industries in which companies use them to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance customer experience.

• Healthcare. AI virtual assistants can be used to help healthcare providers manage patient records, schedule appointments, and provide medication reminders. They can also help triage patients, prioritizing those with urgent medical conditions and directing them to the appropriate healthcare practitioners. For example, Healthily's Dot is a conversational AI tool that provides comprehensive, medically validated information in response to users' health-related queries, enables smart symptom checking, and includes a contextual advertising platform for relevant content.
• Retail. AI assistants can be used to assist customers, provide product recommendations based on their purchase history and preferences, and help with customer service. Additionally, they can respond to customer inquiries, process orders, and monitor shipments, ensuring a seamless and convenient shopping experience.
• Education. Virtual AI assistants can provide students with personalized learning tracks based on their strengths and weaknesses. They can also answer questions, provide feedback on completed assignments, and offer tips and resources useful for studying.
• Finance. AI assistants in finance can assist with a range of tasks, from answering customer inquiries to processing transactions and providing account updates. They also can enhance fraud detection and prevention, analyzing patterns and anomalies in customer behavior for potential threat identification.
• Hospitality. Hotels and resorts can manage reservations, check-ins, and guest requests more effectively with AI assistants. They can also provide guests with recommendations for local attractions and activities, and offer concierge services such as restaurant reservations and transfer arrangements.

How virtual AI assistants help small to medium businesses with digital marketing

In their current state, it is not much of an exaggeration to say that for small and medium businesses (SMBs) virtual AI assistants can effectively transform their digital marketing. Offering cost-effective, efficient, and smart solutions, these online tools can analyze large sets of data, automate repetitive tasks, and provide personalized recommendations to customers.

Audience segmentation & social media management

AI assistants can help with customer segmentation and social media management, enabling businesses to target their audience more precisely and create content that resonates with their customers.

A prominent example here is Talkwalker social listening software. Powered by "Blue Silk AI" technology, this online assistant analyzes data and conversations, summarizing them into clear, insightful summaries in an easy-to-read format. It can also analyze social media trends and sentiment, helping local businesses like restaurants or shops gain a deeper understanding of their audiences better and tailor their content accordingly.

Marketing automation

Other virtual assistants can optimize ad campaigns, manage email marketing, and provide real-time insights into marketing performance, helping SMBs make data-driven decisions and improve their marketing strategy. For example, Albert.ai is a marketing platform that helps businesses get actionable insights from multi-channel data by integrating past performance, behavioral patterns, and emerging trends for better campaign optimization.

Content development

In content creation, AI assistants have shown their extensive capabilities as well. For example, Jacquard (formerly known as Phrasee) provides tools for enhanced brand messaging through AI-driven insights and automation. It leverages a Performance Prediction Engine, trained on extensive copy-based experiments, to forecast the most effective language, emojis, and sentiments for content, achieving a 94% accuracy rate in predicting top-performing variants of email campaigns. All of this results in higher open rates and click-throughs.

A virtual assistant for WhatsApp integrates with the WhatsApp messaging platform, allowing users to interact with the assistant directly through WhatsApp chats, making it convenient for users to access information, receive customer support, or perform various tasks without leaving the app.

A Telegram-based virtual assistant can provide customers who contact the brand via the Telegram messaging app with an interactive chatbot that can answer questions, offer recommendations, and assist with tasks.

A virtual assistant for Instagram integrates with the platform's direct messaging feature, enabling users to interact with the AI chatbot to receive information, or engage in conversations related to the brand or service promoted by its Instagram account.

A Facebook virtual assistant is an AI-powered chatbot that integrates with Facebook Messenger, allowing users to interact with the assistant through the Messenger app to access information and receive customer support through the most popular social media platform.

Umnico Inbox is an omnichannel messaging solution empowering brands to elevate their marketing. The platform combines communication across 25+ social media and messaging apps, enabling seamless management, streamlined sales funnels, and the deployment of advanced marketing automation via GPT-4 powered chatbot builder. An intuitive interface, customizable user roles, and built-in analytics help even small teams take their customer communication to the next level.

Online assistant vs digital marketer

There is often a debate regarding the relative merits of cheap virtual online assistants and highly paid human digital marketers. Both roles offer distinctive advantages. Digital marketers are responsible for developing and implementing strategies to improve brand visibility and generate conversions through SEO, content marketing, and social media. They are essential for strategic vision, creativity.

Virtual assistants, on the other hand, help to streamline daily operations and deal with routine tasks, such as scheduling posts and analyzing data, allowing marketers to focus on strategy. This makes both AI assistants and human experts valuable in their own right.

Conclusion

We are all eyewitnesses to how virtual AI assistants are transforming the landscape of digital marketing across all industries. Their sophisticated functionalities enable businesses to streamline operations, engage customers, and reduce expenses. Additionally, they can assist in content creation and customer inquiries, freeing up team members to focus on more complex tasks that require human input.

Umnico's intuitive drag-and-drop chatbot builder makes it simple for businesses to create a personalized AI assistant, allowing them to leverage the full potential of conversational AI with ease. Thanks to 25+ built-in integrations, the omnichannel messaging platform enables users to manage multiple social media and messaging accounts within a single web or mobile interface. A free trial is available to all new users to test Umnico's capabilities.