Constant Contact’s Latest AI Release Executes Marketing Campaigns

At Inman Connect Las Vegas, July 30-Aug. 1, 2024, the noise and misinformation will be banished, all your big questions will be answered, and new business opportunities will be revealed. Join us.

A year after popular email marketing engine Constant Contact released what it called “the first” artificial intelligence-powered email and SMS marketing content generator for small businesses, the company is back with “Campaign Builder,” an AI-backed workflow automation for executing long-term outreach campaigns.

A May 8 press release said the new product can “automatically generate turnkey, multi-channel marketing campaigns for SMBs (small and midsize businesses) in minutes.”

Constant Contact said that its intent is to help marketing teams and small business leaders get past the most manual and challenging aspects of marketing campaigns — creating and delivering content. Thus, Campaign Builder bases its recommendations and execution on user input about audience, budget, themes and goals to materialize strategic plans. The AI takes it from there, developing marketing tactics and helping users monitor progress and analyze content as the campaign unfolds, according to the company.

In the release, Chief Product Officer at Constant Contact, Russ Morton, said the company recognizes that small business leaders are pressed for time and often marketing expertise, while its AI can produce a viable campaign in seconds.

“We want to alleviate that stress for our customers by being the marketing arm they don’t have and enabling them to maximize their results with minimal effort,” Morton said in the release. “Campaign Builder transforms an SMB’s ability to market their business through a quick and easy experience that empowers them to spend less time on marketing while expanding their tactics and instilling confidence that they are making progress toward their goals.”

Artificial intelligence is becoming a powerful creator of marketing content, finding its way into a number of software solutions for real estate agents. The Real Brokerage has implemented it to assist its agents, as has the CRM company Cloze, among others.

Last year’s release, 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.

A study conducted by Constant Contact revealed the numbers behind the decision to create Campaign Builder. Over half of SMBs surveyed said they have less than an hour each day for marketing, and 73 percent express doubt that their strategy is effective.

“Currently, just 16 percent of SMBs feel confident that they have the correct channel mix to reach their customers, and 60 percent say they don’t have the time or knowledge to try new tactics,” the company said.

Constant Contact is co-launching another AI tool with Campaign Builder called BrandKit. It was developed to leverage AI’s ability to ensure users “stay on brand,” meaning colors, assets, fonts and other recognizable assets remain consistent across multiple campaign tactic iterations, another common challenge for SMB marketers.

After import, the software deploys company assets across campaigns, constantly checking on their use standard and ensuring best practices. BrandKit also builds themes and templates for the user to choose from or edit.

Email Craig Rowe