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Marketing software company Constant Contact has launched what it’s describing as “the first” artificial intelligence-powered email and SMS marketing content generator for small businesses, according to an announcement.
The new feature, called AI Content Generator, empowers customers to automate the copy drafting process for email, text and social media. Constant Contact already uses AI in other facets of product delivery, such as subject line generation and anti-spam features, according to the announcement.
Constant Contact Chief Product Officer Russ Morton said the company built the solution need after learning how long it takes some customers to create automated sequence campaigns.
“Our new AI Content Generator helps customers get started on an email or text easily by blending cutting-edge AI with an intuitive interface that’s designed for small businesses and nonprofits,“ Morton said in a statement. ”In the past, this technology has only been accessible to enterprise-level businesses, but our tool delivers it to the small business market in a way that can help give them a leg up on their larger competitors.”
Morton’s comments will likely appeal to smaller or mid-size brokerages that don’t have the in-house marketing resources to stand up to tech-powered national brokerages, especially given that it’s free for a limited time after launch.
It’s challenging to find a marketing technology company not seeking ways to implement AI. To date, ChatGPT dominates the conversation as a content builder, even helping as an idea generator.
Inman has reviewed alternatives in New Zealand-based ListAssist and Nila June. And last week, reported on the launch of Restb.ai’s text creator powered by its already proven computer vision system, an AI that extracts data from still images.
Constant Contact is one of business world’s most popular options for email marketing. It was reviewed by Inman back in 2015, and has continued to flourish since.
“Constant Contact also enhanced its automation capabilities with a new Automation Path Builder that lets small businesses and nonprofits easily create personalized journeys for customers based on recent actions and preferences,“ the company said.
Users can choose to use pre-built templates to further speed the creation process, allowing them to react quickly to market trends and customer behavior.
Real estate agents have a wide array of stand-alone email marketing tools to choose from, including MailChimp, ActivePipe, Rezora and Happy Grasshopper. Virtually every CRM available also provides email campaign builders with some form of automation.
Malte Kramer, who founded and runs website and marketing technology company Luxury Presence, was interviewed by Inman about email strategy for 2023. He said that the key to email marketing success is content relevancy.
“Often, a lot the opportunities are in an existing database,” Kramer said. “It makes sense that email marketing will be focused on by agents, it’s one of the best channels to surface those opportunities.”
The technology industry is bearing down on public data availability, meaning marketers need to be deliberate in their outreach to ensure automated spam monitoring bots don’t decide to derail your campaign. Device privacy is a trend Kramer envisions growing, and becoming a concern for agents.
“There’s a shift toward content as the foundation for marketing across all channels,” Kramer said. “It can be written or video, but it’s really hard to run effective marketing campaigns without great, valuable content.”
