Yearly Archives: 2023

Looking to grow your company’s reach? Education marketing is the answer. Here, you can grow demand for your product, services, or institutions as more people choose online education. The data speaks loudly: The global e-learning industry is set to reach $457.8 billion by 2026.

How do you develop your first education marketing campaign? How much money and time do you need to invest? What is the whole range of benefits?

In this guide, you’ll learn the fundamentals of education marketing. Understand the steps of building an education marketing strategy, as well as get actionable tips.

Table of Contents

What is education marketing?
Why education marketing is important?
Building an Education Marketing Strategy
4 Tips for Education Marketing

What is education marketing?

Education marketing is the practice of promoting educational institutions, programs, products, or services to prospective students (aka clients), thus increasing student enrollment.

Let’s dive into an example. A nearby community college is seeking to increase the number of students enrolling in its vocational training courses, with a specific focus on healthcare programs. To achieve this, they create target ads, social media posts, and testimonials from past students who got rewarding careers.

Additionally, they host webinars and virtual open days to engage with prospective students and answer their questions by highlighting the high demand for healthcare professionals.

Note: Education marketing is often confused with education-based marketing. The latter is a specific marketing strategy used to educate potential customers on a particular topic by creating demand rather than directly pushing toward a sale.

Why Education Marketing Is Important

The online and offline education sectors are highly competitive. Here is why education marketing matters to stand out in today’s saturated market.

It boosts brand recognition.

Successful marketing campaigns lead to a strong and recognizable brand identity for educational institutions. They also have strong associations with specific qualities, values, and attributes.

An example may be a heartwarming welcome video, like one from Stanford.

It helps reach a broader audience.

Education marketing helps such institutions reach a broader and more diverse audience, including international students, non-traditional learners, and remote learners.

For example, non-traditional learners often require information about how the institution’s programs can fit into their busy lives and career aspirations. Effective marketing helps convey this information and demonstrates that the institution understands and supports its educational journey.

Invite world-known speakers to prompt students to enroll in the institutions. Here is the motivational speech from Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computer and Pixar Animation Studios.

Back in 2005, at Stanford University‘s 114th Commencement, he delivered a speech urging graduates to pursue their dreams and see the opportunities in life’s setbacks.

It allows educators to learn about the needs of their students.

Education marketing is not only about students, their families, or institutions themselves. There are also other stakeholders, such as educators.

Katie Stoddard, a former educator turned education marketer, sees marketing as a key piece of the education ecosystem.

“In a world where decisions on instructional materials and professional learning largely happen due to past relationships, marketing is a way for educators to learn about other solutions and tools that meet the needs of their learners,” Stoddard says.

Stoddard is the founder and managing director at Ed2Market. She notes that marketing allows small companies to compete with the legacy providers in the space.

“And most importantly, it’s the start of the cycle that gets the absolute best products and services into classrooms across the globe,” she says.

It helps student families get involved.

Education marketing should cover any possible information that the students and families might need, showing them what their options are, what they can expect, and why they should pursue education at a given academic institution.

Students and their families can easily access information by reading testimonials, watching videos, or taking virtual tours. This is true at all levels of education — from elementary schools to universities to online academies.

According to the RNL’s latest report, parents preferred to get important information via email. The same report suggests that parents are open to getting emails from different universities if they contain the following information:

Cost (tuition, accommodation, etc).
Academics (programs, subject area info).
Admissions requirements, deadlines, and timeline.

Building an Education Marketing Strategy

Here are six fundamental steps to build an effective education marketing strategy.

For each step, we’ve sourced real examples of campaigns.

1. Understand your target audience.

First, define your audience. In this case, decide who is receiving your educational offer. By this, we don’t simply mean prospective students.

Think about their families, too. Parents or relatives most often have the final say in their educational choices.

Have a clear understanding of the goals and expectations of both parties and make sure your educational offering is a great fit for them.

Pro tip: Conduct surveys and anonymous reviews to collect feedback on your target audience. What do they value, what factors impact their decision-making, and what expectations do they have from institutions?

Knowing the answers will help you find common ground to offer courses and programs that meet their needs.

2. Articulate your unique selling points.

Define what sets your educational institution or program apart.

Highlight your strengths, such as academic excellence, unique programs, experienced faculty, or special facilities. Recognize the qualifications and expertise of your faculty members.

For example, mention any faculty members or notable alumni who have received awards, grants, or recognition. If you possess modern facilities, laboratories, or other resources that provide exceptional learning opportunities, feature them prominently.

In the example below, Oregon State University uses pieces of concrete information to get visitors’ attention. The copy focuses on science and research.

The statistics further reinforce a positive impression.

Image Source

3. Choose social media channels to connect with the audience.

Social media channels are extremely popular among millennials and Generation Z, the members of your target audience.

Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and LinkedIn are the most used social networks, each with its specific characteristics.

From the beginning, stick to 2-3 social media platforms where your audience spends most of their time. Make sure to keep consistency across all your social media channels.

Central Michigan University posted an emotional video on TikTok showing the graduation ceremony where the brother of one of the graduates surprisingly came to congratulate her sister.

The video generated more than 5.5 million views despite having just 14,000 followers.

Image Source

4. Roll out an email marketing campaign.

Education-related emails have an open rate of 35.42%, indicating that old-fashioned email marketing is still effective in education.

Create a monthly or quarterly newsletter communicating your institution’s most important activities. Each email should have a clear and compelling call to action (CTA), such as “Enroll Now,” “Learn More,” or “Register Today.”

Image Source

Use email automation tools to send targeted emails based on recipient actions, such as welcome sequences, nurturing campaigns, and event reminders.

Send follow-up emails, provide how-tos, tips, and tricks to engage with candidates, and nurture them through the enrollment or conversion process.

Pro tip: Use HubSpot’s FREE email tracking tool to get notifications as soon as someone opens your emails and keep an eye on their interactions.

Try our email software today.

5. Invest in digital advertisement.

Digital advertising will help you reach not only local but also international students who are interested in studying abroad or taking online courses.

Digital advertising platforms, such as Google Ads, Bing Ads, and social media ads, offer precise targeting options.

Set up advertising campaigns based on geographical, demographical, or interest-based targeting. Experiment with various ad formats, such as search, display ads, video, or social media ads.

In the image below, there are several search ad examples. All include the degree program as the title, as well as relevant CTAs prompting you to explore more.

6. Track the metrics and optimize.

Track the metrics to calculate the ROI of your marketing efforts. Understand what‘s working and what’s not so you can optimize your resources and use them wisely.

Depending on your objectives, the list of relevant metrics and KPIs may vary.

Tips for Education Marketing

How to succeed in education marketing? Here are a couple of actionable tips to implement in your education marketing campaigns.

1. Focus on informational content.

The key to educational marketing is to provide value at every stage. Identify the pain points and needs of your target audience throughout their user journey and create informational content around them.

The latest education marketing trends indicate that the most popular types of content include:

Long-form articles.
Case studies.
Newsletters.
Testimonials.
Press releases.
Checklists.
Ebooks.
Videos.
Webinars.
Podcasts.

Want an example?

At HubSpot, we built a comprehensive academy that provides teachers and university instructors with the opportunity to access inbound education marketing resources and sales training materials, such as guides, templates, ebooks, and webinars.

As members of the academy, educators can use HubSpot’s software for free and become part of a community.

Image Source

2. Use subject spotlights to let students try before they apply.

How do you make sure that prospective students have a good perception of their desired program? Subject Spotlights is the answer.

Created by Springpod, it provides an interactive, cinematic course taster experience, which enables institutions to attract, engage, and inform prospective students about their course offerings.

Using this tactic, you also spot courses with low interest to promote them more.

3. Leverage student reviews.

Actively solicit reviews from current and former students, parents, and alumni. Address both positive and negative reviews and identify areas for improvement.

Create engaging video testimonials featuring students, alumni, and faculty members sharing their experiences and success stories. Incorporate them into your marketing materials, such as brochures, website content, and social media posts.

Image Source

4. Grab students’ attention with events.

Host days where prospective students can explore your campus, interact with faculty and current students, and get a feel for the educational environment.

You can also create a community with past students and organize events such as yearly reunions. Invite renowned guest speakers, industry leaders, or alumni to share their experiences and insights with students.

Get creative and host career fairs to introduce students to potential employers, internships, and job opportunities. This is especially beneficial for higher education institutions.

Image Source

Here is a podcast from Education Marketer: Learn how to use events to grab students’ attention in detail.

Leverage Education Marketing to Maximize Your Institution’s Potential

Education marketing plays a pivotal role in the success and growth of educational institutions across all levels, from schools and colleges to universities and online academies.

To overcome shifts in student expectations, combine different education marketing strategies, gain insights, and optimize your campaigns accordingly.

A car fire ignited a viral marketing moment for the Stanley brand.

On November 15, TikTok user @danimarielettering posted a video showing the aftermath of her car catching on fire. Though the car was totaled, her Stanley Quencher tumbler was intact and still had ice in it.

The video quickly went viral and has gone on to rack up more than 84 million views.

Two days later, Stanley President Terence Reilly stitched Danielle’s original video offering to send her some new tumblers and to replace her car on behalf of the brand. This response has earned over 32 million views, quickly becoming the feel-good story of the season.

The comments to Reilly’s response are filled with praise for the brand, with TikTok users saying:

“This is awesome, definitely buying a Stanley now!”

“They responded, that’s freaking awesome. I’m gonna have to buy a Stanley now.”

“Do I need a Stanley, no. Am I going to buy one on principle now, yes.”

While the circumstances of this marketing moment are unusual, the Stanley brand is no stranger to TikTok virality.

Becoming a viral water bottle brand

Over the years there have been various trendy water bottle brands including S’well, Hydroflask, Yeti, and now Stanley.

The Stanley brand has been around for over 100 years and was best known for goods that could stand up to outdoor activities. However, the brand’s target demographic began to shift after the introduction of the Quencher tumbler in 2017.

That same year, bloggers behind The Buy Guide began sharing links to the Quencher introducing the cups to a new audience that wasn’t familiar with Stanley’s outdoorsy roots. However, in 2019 Stanley stopped listing Quenchers on its website to prioritize other products.

The Buy Guide founders felt there was a greater opportunity to market the tumblers to women, and worked with Stanley on a wholesale arrangement to begin selling the cups on their own site.

According to The New York Times, they quickly sold out of their initial run of 5,000 tumblers in 2019. The success of this initial run led the Stanley brand to reintroduce the Quenchers on the brand’s official site in 2020, offering more colors and an intentional influencer marketing strategy to attract more female customers.

These tactics worked. By 2022 Stanley tumblers continued to gain momentum on social media as the viral item to have and frequently sold out. Last year, sales for Stanley tumblers increased by 275%.

What began as an unfortunate accident, resulted in well over 100 million impressions and positive PR for the already social-savvy brand.

Choosing the right logo color scheme for your brand can make a significant impact on memorability and awareness.

In fact, 75% of people recognize a brand by its logo, and 45% identify brands based on their brand colors. Simply put, your brand colors matter.

Whether you’re going through a rebrand or starting your business from scratch, here’s some inspiration for logo color combinations that you can use to create a memorable brand icon.

Understanding Color Theory and Meanings

25 Logo Color Scheme Examples

Understanding Color Theory and Meanings

Before we dive into brand logo color combinations, it’s important to understand general color theory.

There are a few ways to create an aesthetically pleasing color palette. A common way is by choosing complementary colors.

Complementary colors are pairs of colors that sit directly across each other on the color wheel.

When you put complementary colors next to each other in a design, they create a high degree of contrast (i.e., both colors stick out), and the result is usually quite harmonious.

Of course, complementary colors aren’t the only combination of colors that can make for a pleasing palette. There are also:

Analogous colors — Colors that appear next to each other on the color wheel.
Triadic colors — Three colors that are evenly spaced around the color wheel.
Split-complementary colors — These consist of a base color plus the two colors adjacent to the base color’s complement on the color wheel.

Here’s a diagram to help you understand these combinations better:

Now, truth be told, several other types of color combinations are based on the color wheel — these are just the most basic. By understanding how different colors are oriented on the color wheel, you can make more harmonious color choices.

Another element to consider when choosing a color combination for your brand’s logo is the different meanings of each color. For instance, red usually symbolizes passion and intensity, whereas green can represent growth or wealth.

99designs provides an excellent explainer video of the most popular colors and their meanings in the video below:

25 Logo Color Scheme Examples

If you’re looking for examples of different logo color combinations your brand can choose from, check out these examples from real-life companies. There are a few color combination categories that logos typically fall under, which include:

Monochrome logos — Logos that have a single prominent color and may be supported with neutral accent colors like white or black.
Two-color logos — Logos with two prominent colors.
Multi-color logos — Logos with more than two colors.

Monochrome Logos

1. Starbucks: Green

One of the most recognized logos worldwide, Starbucks has developed an iconic color scheme that demonstrates the power of green. “Starbucks Green” is a shade of green that’s hard to associate with any other company due to how well the coffee company has positioned itself and its logo.

The brand uses a “family of greens” in its full-color palette, which the company describes as “fresh and inviting.” Starbucks’ color palette is a perfect example of a monochromatic color scheme.

Instead of thinking of the green, dark green, and light green in Starbucks’ palette as separate colors, think of them as different flavors of the same color. Or, more accurately, various flavors of the same hue.

Here’s a quick explanation of hue and other related terms:

Hue. What we usually mean when we talk about color. The hue is the overarching, discerning quality of a color (e.g., “green” or “blue”).
Shade. What you get when you add black to a particular hue (e.g., dark green is a shade of green).
Tint. What you get when you add white to a particular hue (e.g., light green is a tint of green).
Tone. What you get when you add black and white — a.k.a. gray — to a particular hue (e.g., pastel green is a tone of green).
Saturation. While “tone” is a popular painting term, in graphic design, you’ll be more likely to encounter the term “saturation” when dealing with adding gray to color. More specifically, saturation defines a range of colors, starting with gray (0% saturation) and ending with a pure, gray-less form of the color (100% saturation). Desaturated colors are softer and potentially duller than their vivid and highly saturated counterparts.

Shades of green create a fresh look and can communicate growth and prosperity and connect your brand with nature, making it a good brand color scheme for companies in the food and beverage or outdoor industries.

2. McDonald’s: Yellow

Recognized worldwide, McDonald’s has created one of the most iconic logos with its golden yellow arches.

In terms of color psychology, yellow, the prominent color in McDonald’s color palette, is associated with both energy and happiness — which is undoubtedly the feeling McDonald’s wants to invoke in its customers.

While yellow is the brand’s primary color, McDonald’s also uses accents of red in its branding. Red is the most emotionally charged color around, so it’s unsurprising that McDonald’s employs it in their logo: They want you to feel energized and excited.

3. Meta: Blue

Blue is one of the most common logo colors. In fact, one study of 500 company logos found that 37% were blue. Black was a close second at 31%. Blue is a reliable color that conveys positive feelings that many companies would likely want to express, such as trust, security, and intelligence.

Meta’s logo color scheme includes a blue gradient as the primary color for its logo symbol. It’s complemented by black with the text element of the logo.

4. Target: Red

Red is powerful, bold, and attention-grabbing, which makes it the perfect color to pair with Target’s symbol. The retailer uses red as the primary color in its logo, along with white accents throughout the rest of its branding.

5. Duolingo: Green

Language learning app Duolingo also has a primarily green logo and dubs its core color “Feather Green.” This shade of green is vibrant and playful, effectively communicating energy and growth.

6. Etsy: Orange

Orange is used to convey creativity, enthusiasm, playfulness, and energy. It is an excellent color to incorporate in your logo color scheme if your brand is in a creative industry or you have a fun product.

For example, orange perfectly represents what Etsy wants to put into the world as a global marketplace for handmade and artisan goods from creative individuals.

7. Stripe: Modern Purple

Purple can be seen as part of many logo color combinations for tech brands as it’s become a more modern version of the standard blue color that companies have leaned towards previously.

Stripe, for instance, uses a hue referred to as blurple, which is blue and purple combined. This tone of purple is a lighter spin on the traditional blue and helps position Stripe as a modern brand.

8. Urban Decay: Violet

As a logo color, purple can signify luxury and royalty. It’s a great color to choose if you want to position your brand as a luxury product like Urban Decay. The makeup brand uses a violet hue as its primary logo color.

Combined with the font style, Urban Decay’s logo looks elegant and expressive, a great way to reflect their products.

Two-Color Logo Combinations

9. FedEx: Purple and Orange

FedEx has a highly recognizable brand logo, and its contrasting logo color combination is a significant reason for that (another reason is the clever placement of the arrow). The shipping company’s brand colors are “FedEx Purple” and “FedEx Orange.”

The reason these two colors work well together is because they are complementary. Being on opposite sides of the color wheel means these two colors contrast and create a bold combination.

Regarding the psychology behind these two colors, orange evokes friendliness, vitality, and energy. Purple represents luxury and creativity. Combined, this color combination makes a powerful duo.

10. Wimbledon: Purple and Green

Purple and green are somewhat analogous on the color wheel. While they aren’t right next to each other, they aren’t complete opposites either. Their relation on the color wheel is connected through tones and saturation.

Wimbledon’s logo color scheme uses the official brand colors Wimbledon Green and Wimbledon Purple. These shades have deep tones which connect the two colors. As we mentioned above, purple signifies luxury.

When combined with the green hue, which can convey wealth, health, and sustainability, it makes sense why this color scheme is used to represent an elite tennis tournament.

11. Mailchimp: Yellow and Black

Yellow is a popular logo color choice among companies, and for good reason. The color creates happiness, energy, optimism, and youth, all positive feelings associated with a brand.

Mailchimp’s primary logo color is Cavendish Yellow. The email marketing company describes its overall branding as playful and expressive, and its brand color contributes to that concept by communicating brightness and energy — black balances out the yellow to bring in modern and professional accents.

12. Chase: Blue and Black

The color blue conveys trust, professionalism, and security, which makes it a color commonly used by financial institutions like Chase Bank. Chase uses both blue and black in its logo color scheme, and combined, these colors communicate a secure, trustworthy, powerful, and modern brand.

13. Bank of America: Red and blue

Red and blue are a classic color combination. The complementary colors are instantly recognizable and associated with tradition, professionalism, importance, and trust when used together. As a long-established financial institution, Bank of America conveys these attributes through its logo color combination. It also works well with its name and nods to the American flag.

14. UPS: Brown and Gold

Brown is an earthy and traditional color, while gold communicates success. By using this color combination, UPS is letting its customers know that it’s an established and successful brand that can be trusted to support shipping needs.

15. Baskin Robbins: Brown and Pink

Brown and pink are contrasting colors, which can make for an interesting color combination for a logo. As we mentioned above, brown can evoke an old-fashioned feeling. On the flip side, pink is playful, youthful, and modern.

Together, brown and pink can conjure images of desserts like ice cream or other sweet treats. Using these colors together as Baskin Robbins can communicate dual emotions for a balanced brand concept.

16. Dunkin: Orange and Pink

Pink and orange are analogous on the color wheel, which means they pair well as a color palette. Dunkin’s logo has evolved over the years, but orange remains its primary color, while pink is used more as a secondary one and sometimes as an accent.

As we mentioned above, pink evokes a feeling of playfulness and youth. Orange can also be used to communicate youthfulness and energy, which makes these the perfect colors to use for a lighthearted brand for a donut shop.

Multi-Color Logo Combinations

17. Google: Primary Colors

Another instantly recognizable logo, this blue, green, yellow, and red color palette, belongs to none other than Google. Even without having any previous education about color theory, there are some basic lessons we can take away from this palette on how different color models work.

For starters, you may have noticed that the red, blue, and yellow in Google’s palette are primary colors — colors you can mix to form all other colors.

While the green in Google’s color scheme is a secondary color in the CMYK system — cyan (blue-ish), magenta (reddish), yellow, and key (black) — it’s a primary color in the RGB system (red, green, blue).

Another interesting thing to note is four distinct hues and no root color binding them all together. So, why do Google’s colors still seem to mesh and look good next to each other? A key reason is that they all have similarly high saturation levels. Keep this in mind when you want to create logos with multiple colors.

18. Figma: Vibrant Color Palette

Figma, a collaborative design software, uses multiple vibrant colors in its brand logo. This logo and the color palette are often used against a black background, making the bold colors pop even more.

While these colors seemingly contrast one another — they’re shades of red, green, and purple — they all have the same tone and saturation, which makes them flow together seamlessly. This color palette works well for a company that operates in the creative design industry.

19. Quickbooks: Green, White, and Navy Blue

Quickbooks also uses green as its primary logo color. Green is commonly used to signify money and growth, so it makes sense for the financial platform to put green front and center. Quickbooks shares its full brand color scheme on its website, as shown below.

While green is the primary logo color, the rest of Quickbooks’ color palette includes complementary colors that are shades of blue, beige, and gray.

20. YouTube: Red, White, and Black

YouTube’s brand color scheme comprises red, white, and black. YouTube’s big red play button is easily recognizable thanks to the attention-grabbing color, which makes sense when you consider that red is a bold and impactful color in terms of color theory. It makes sense to use red to highlight the icon element of its logo.

21. Slack: Modern Primary Colors

Slack uses four core colors in its logo: red, yellow, blue, and green. These colors are shades of the standard primary colors used to express the brand’s personality.

Logo color combinations like this exemplify how you can take a standard set of primary colors and make them your own by adjusting the tone to match your style.

22. Oatly: Light Blue, White, and Black

Oatly’s use of blue, particularly in this lighter shade, creates a sense of calm, especially when paired with white. Blue and white are a classic color combination that can be used to signify a brand is cool, calm, and collected.

When you add black into the mix, it complements the lighter tones of blue and white, which helps create a more balanced look.

23. Wayfair: Purple, Yellow, and Green

As we mentioned above, purple in logos can have many meanings. It’s often used to convey luxury. It can also communicate creativity, expression, and uniqueness. For Wayfair’s logo color scheme, purple is complemented by yellow and green, and the purple is extended with lighter shades of the hue.

24. TikTok: Black, Red, and Turquoise

Black is a foundational logo color that’s easy to build off of with accent colors. Take TikTok’s brand color scheme, for example. The social media platform uses black as the base color and includes a pinkish shade of red and a light blue turquoise hue as accents.

25. Trivago: Blue, Orange, and Red

Trivago’s logo is a perfect example of a split-complementary color scheme. As a refresher, split-complementary color schemes consist of a base color plus the two colors adjacent to the base color’s complement on the color wheel.

In this case, blue is the base color, with orange and red being the adjacent complementary colors.

Your brand colors are just as important in your logo as they are throughout the rest of your brand assets.

With the right color scheme, you can create a recognizable logo that reflects your brand and helps people remember your company.

Post Content

If you’re like most marketers, you’ve tried out a generative AI tool. You’ve played around with ChatGPT to generate headlines. Yet, these fragmented use cases don’t capture the full power of deploying AI strategically. In five years, many companies will be creating AI marketing campaigns.

According to McKinsey & Co., 90% of commercial leaders believe their organizations should use generative AI often, yet only 20% do. While individual teams are testing AI in small ways, most teams aren’t comfortable enough with the technology yet to use it for higher thinking or strategy.

Let’s take a look at how to create an AI marketing campaign: what the possibilities and limitations are, as well as what tools will give you the best results.

Table of Contents

Benefits of Creating an AI Marketing Campaign
7 Ways to Use Generative AI in Marketing Campaigns
5 AI Tools [Reviewed] to Add to Your Marketers’ Arsenal
Which AI tool pitches the best marketing campaigns?

Benefits of Creating an AI Marketing Campaign

First, why would you want to create an AI marketing campaign in the first place? Most of us associate higher-level strategy and thinking as a solely human function, but AI is becoming more competent in this area.

Think about how AI tools are trained: They use machine learning to analyze the top-performing campaigns across email, social media, and search results.

They use big data to find and replicate the top marketing campaigns, borrowing from their format and syntax while giving you an original campaign idea.

While they can’t ever replace human originality, they can help humans do their best work. Here’s why you should give AI marketing campaigns a try.

1. Launch Campaigns Fast

The best marketing campaigns take weeks, if not months, to develop. Or do they?

AI marketing campaigns help teams move from concept to execution in a matter of hours — saving valuable time and making it possible to react quickly to changes in your market.

Today, marketers work on an average of five campaigns at a time. This speed could be a game-changer.

2. Spark Fresh Ideas

AI tools may not give you an ADDY-winning campaign idea the first time or even the fifth time. Together with its prompter (that’s you), it can serve as a creative springboard to move through mediocre ideas to find an epic one.

Marketer Joe Lazer Lazauskas recently wrote about this phenomenon in The Storytelling Edge newsletter.

“Tools like ChatGPT allow us to have brainstorming sessions on-demand. It’s like having a thousand co-workers trapped inside your computer, eagerly waiting to yell ideas at you—except their ideas will probably be better,” Lazauskas writes.

3. Drive Revenue

Research by McKinsey & Co. found that companies who invest in AI are seeing a revenue boost of 3-15% and a sales ROI boost of 10-20%.

Though many factors determine how effective an AI marketing campaign will be, there’s evidence that strategic, consistent deployment can boost the bottom line.

7 Ways to Use Generative AI in Your Marketing Campaigns

Rather than feeding ChatGPT prompts like “Give me 10 headline ideas about…” put on your strategist hat for a minute. What do you need to know to produce a great marketing campaign?

Who the audience is
What your key messages or differentiators are
What you want the audience to do
Your tone or writing style

Once you feed this high-level information to the tool, it’s ready to start producing ideas and won’t waste your time on campaign pitches that miss the mark. At this point, you can ask artificial intelligence to brainstorm:

AI campaign ideation. Ask AI to pitch an overall concept and hook for your campaign before building out individual content assets
AI social media campaigns. Use AI to write a social media marketing campaign for you. In addition to suggesting a post, AI tools can describe an image, targeting parameters, and even a budget for your marketing campaign.
AI advertising on Google Search. Envision a Google search campaign by researching keywords and asking AI to pitch you a PPC campaign complete with copy and targeting demographics.
AI email campaigns. Build out an email series or email campaign by feeding your AI tool your call-to-action, demographics, and key messages.
AI blog campaigns. Attract potential leads and save time with starter blog content for your website.
AI commercials and video marketing. While AI video production is still in its early stages, you can absolutely request marketing campaign concepts and video scripts for just about anything.
AI landing pages. Finally, make sure your campaign can convert by building out a landing page with messaging that matches your ad content. Keep your concept consistent from end to end to engage readers.

Starting to see the possibilities? Now, let’s get down to looking at the best tools where you can build your AI marketing campaign.

5 AI Tools [Reviewed] To Add To Your Marketers’ Arsenal

The flood of AI tools entering the market is more than a little mind-boggling.

To help you focus your time, I compared several of the top tools in a head-to-head test to see which creates the best marketing campaign. It’s like having your own bevy of ad agencies pitching you campaigns.

Let’s see how each one performed in our fictional campaigns.

Campaign Assistant by HubSpot

One barrier to implementing AI effectively is that the tools are so vast that they can be difficult to understand and use. This campaign assistant by HubSpot is designed exclusively for creating marketing campaigns and is virtually foolproof.

The campaign assistant asks you specific questions about your audience, your messages, your writing style, and your CTA, so you don’t miss anything important.

Tell the campaign assistant which campaign asset you want it to create. Then, you’re ready to go.

To put Campaign Assistant to the test, we fed it a fictional use case for an ecommerce brand that sells sustainable bags and luggage.

AI Email Campaign with Campaign Assistant

First, I selected a marketing email and put in my prompts for the campaign. I described my business and three key messages that I want my audience to know.

Then, I gave a desired action and up to three descriptors to create a writing style. I asked for a witty and confident tone.

Here’s the email that campaign assistant sent back. It shares a catchy subject line and pre-header, three paragraphs that hit my three main points, and an “Order Now” button at the bottom.

The email needs a little tweaking to make the writing tighter and more personalized, but it’s a good start.

AI Google Search Ad Campaign with Campaign Assistant

To continue the test, I asked the campaign assistant to convert this campaign into a Google Search ad campaign. I didn’t have to input the information again — HubSpot’s campaign assistant simply converted it over for me.

The result? Short and sweet Google ad content in preview mode as it would appear on Google. If I want to use it, I can simply copy/paste it over to Google Ads.

AI Social Media Campaign with Campaign Assistant

Finally, I asked the campaign assistant to create a social media campaign for Facebook.

The tool can also create campaigns for LinkedIn and Instagram (launching soon).

The platform suggested three ads with a headline and body copy for me to review and placed them in a preview pane.

While the images are just placeholders, it’s useful to envision how it might look.

Once you have a campaign draft you’re happy with or ready to edit outside the platform, you can copy/paste it in one click or publish it if you’re a HubSpot user.

Honorable mention: Content Assistant by HubSpot

While we always recommend strategy first, there’s also a benefit to ideating in the same space where you produce your content. This helps you see your campaign in layout and tweak the designs in real time.

That’s where HubSpot’s other AI tool can come in handy. Content assistant is generative AI built into HubSpot’s layout and publishing tool.

If you use HubSpot for email marketing or landing page creation, you can strategize, create, and publish all in the same window.

ChatGPT by OpenAI

ChatGPT is likely the most well-known AI tool, with more than 100 million users.

We tested it to see how it handles marketing campaign requests, giving it the same ecommerce campaign prompt.

Since ChatGPT doesn’t have a plug-and-play prompt feature like campaign assistant, I fed it the information in natural language prompts (see the example below). This test used ChatGPT version 3.5. Here’s the marketing campaign it created.

AI Email Campaign with ChatGPT

The first iteration of the email campaign that ChatGPT had some good lines (“Hey there, Eco-Explorer!”) and endearing emojis but was far too long for an ecommerce email. So, I asked ChatGPT to cut the length in half.

The final result was more scannable and still conversational. It even created a discount code for my campaign, EARTH25.

AI Google Search Ad Campaign with ChatGPT

To make my campaign cross-channel, I prompted ChatGPT to repurpose my campaign for Google search.

The tool brainstormed three ad groups for me and three ads within each group. The headlines aren’t bad. The output also includes the main keywords and discounts needed to draw a click.

Beyond the ad copy, ChatGPT can also recommend parameters to make your PPC campaign a success. It recommends ad extensions, a bidding strategy, and best practices.

AI Social Media Campaign with ChatGPT

Finally, I asked ChatGPT to convert this campaign into a companion ad campaign on Facebook.

ChatGPT produced social media copy that was similar to its email campaign draft. However, it also recommended an image, a CTA better suited for Facebook, and four hashtags for my post.

ChatGPT gave me three ad alternatives and some basic campaign details about my audience and campaign objective. It’s somewhat vague, but you could follow up with some additional prompts to get extra targeting recommendations.

LLaMA 2 by Meta

If you haven’t heard of this one, you aren’t alone. Released quietly in mid-2023, LLaMA 2 is Meta’s large language model (LLM), which is free and open to the public.

Unlike ChatGPT or Google Bard, LLaMA 2 is open-source, allowing users to flag and fix potential issues. To chat with LLaMA 2 on a browser, I used Chat Arena.

AI Email Campaign with LLaMA 2

First, I fed LLaMA 2 the exact same prompt as Campaign Assistant and ChatGPT asking for an email campaign. The email could use a shave for length but definitely delivered a witty tone.

The email came complete with emojis and a discount code suggestion but appeared to be missing a call to action — a big oversight in the email marketing realm.

AI Google Search Ad Campaign with LLaMA 2

Next, I served LLaMA 2 the challenge of converting this into a PPC campaign with the simple follow-up prompt, “Can you convert this into a Google Search ad campaign?”

First, LLaMA 2 organized my campaign into three different ad groups based on product type. Each ad within the ad groups focused on a different angle or audience, setting it up well for A/B testing.

Here’s the headline, ad copy, and CTA that LLaMA 2 wrote for the search campaign. While I can’t preview how it would look in campaign assistant, it did save me time by pulling the top keywords I can use for the campaign.

AI Social Media Ad Campaign with LLaMA 2

Finally, I asked LLaMA 2 to create a Facebook Ad campaign for me based on the campaign parameters already entered. Since LLaMA 2 was created by Facebook’s owner Meta, it’s no surprise that the results were very thorough.

LLaMA 2 gave me a target audience with suggested demographics and interests to target. The ad creative included an idea image, headline, text, four hashtags, and a CTA. It also suggests a budget of $1,000 and a 30-day duration.

The model also gave me some tips to increase sales through Facebook ads, such as running retargeting ads and creating a lookalike audience.

Want to learn more? Read the State of AI in Marketing report or visit our resources and best practices for AI marketing campaigns.

Which AI tool pitches the best marketing campaign?

Looking at these AI tools side by side, you can see that each one has its own strengths in marketing campaign creation.

Campaign Assistant by HubSpot is best for ease of use and plug-and-play capabilities that make it easy for marketers. It also gives design previews to help users visualize their campaigns and integration that saves existing HubSpot users time.

ChatGPT is likely the most flexible tool, with natural language processing enabling you to make customization requests to tweak your campaigns. Its emoji-filled copy hits the right notes, and it delivers strategy and campaign advice for paid ads.

With Meta’s influence, LLaMA 2 gives the most detailed strategy recommendations for paid ad campaigns. It also managed to pull off some wordplay that’s impressive for a machine: “Buckle up (or should we say buckle in?)”.

Just remember, AI marketing campaigns are a complement to human creativity. All three of these tools suggested very similar campaigns: images of bags and their wearers with scenic backdrops behind them.

While this is a solid idea, if every company followed it, no one would stand out. Always give the ideas a gut check against what you know about your audience and industry, and edit and tweak AI content to make it brand-perfect.