When artificial intelligence (AI) pioneer Alan Turing said, “A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human,” all he meant was there might come a time when virtual assistants and bots will become close to real-life personal assistants.
AI is poised to open new doors and unlock incredible potential for all walks of life. There might come a situation that humans may develop an antipathy towards robots and hyper-intelligent machines. This would happen due to the unparalleled logic, and accurate, timely and precise decision-making capabilities of these smart and self-learning machines. Google’s Voice assistant, Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana or Amazon’s Alexa are the AI-powered applications that are up to the task and provide results that are crisp, precise and personalized.
These AI-powered tools are built and designed to serve one big need: deliver results to meet all the end users’ needs in the most relevant way. Thanks to AI, the gaps in the process can not only be identified but can also be addressed and eliminated. For marketers, AI will free up resources; will lead to closer, more meaningful connections; and will help develop a more well-rounded understanding of customers to deliver what they want, when they want it. Many global brands are now increasingly leveraging AI to drive user engagement and ensure that they don’t miss out on any opportunity.
AI and advanced analytics can be thought of as the new team members. AI can prove to be additional hands that help in digging out certain kind of inputs and insights, which were once overlooked or no one had thought of. They help the current teams make the most out of their existing data and capabilities. Let us try to find out how AI can turnaround the marketing processes:
1. Right Customer At The Right Time
AI and technology can help marketers provide seamless experiences to customers by reaching out to them at the right time and adjusting according to their schedules. It’ll be more like you’re working alongside customers’ routines and daily tasks by helping when and where you’re needed. AI can track the customers’ behavior, and suggest the next course of action or point of interaction to you. Technology can aid marketers to provide high-touch services to customers.
High-touch services require a lot of data extraction and translating into insights to learn about customer preferences and choices. Online surveys could be one way, or you can look at how a customer navigates to a website and social media or responds to online ads and emails. AI can help to curate detailed user and contact information of prospective clients for marketers to build upon. It may also help marketers reach their prospects at the right time, right place and right channel. Marketers may schedule and plan campaigns at the right time to ensure maximum reach outs. They can see expected campaign response rates based on predictions of customers’ potential actions and affinities using machine learning algorithms.
2. Right Content To The Right Audience
Customers have specific purchase patterns, preset biases and buying propensities that influence their decision-making process. Marketers can deep dive into customer profiles, brand interactions, predicted future behaviors and demographics. AI-based marketing lets marketers profile their current and prospective customers according to their behavioral characteristics, and analyze their historical data (past purchase, brand interactions and social data) to come up with the most relevant strategy for each and every customer. AI-based marketing modules can help to discover new personas and micro-segments that are based on targeting strategy of businesses and customer behavior.
Imagine if instead of shooting out an email blast to all your customers, you had the chance to create a personalized message for each one, based on who they are, what they are looking for and the specific problems they’re trying to overcome. Here’s where AI enters: to be your hero and help you develop and deliver mass but personalized content and solutions. Whether it’s video, case studies, blog posts or white papers, most content marketing is generic and designed to appeal to the mass customer. Any marketing asset can have a different role for each customer based on what problem he is trying to solve at that very moment and what portfolio of solutions the company has. AI can help you pursue hyper-personalized campaigns for faster conversions.
3. Getting Closer To Customers
AI and advanced analytics are not just about smart machines and automation; it’s about getting closer to customers through personalized messages curated or designed to meet every customer’s needs and expectations. The use of chatbots, auto-generated mails or virtual assistants may leave the customers feeling as if they are talking to machines or dealing with robots. Marketers need to find out where humans are performing tasks that aren’t drawing on their expertise or talent. Could chatbots provide faster responses? Could AI provide better and faster low-level decision-making? Could AI help design some campaigns to facilitate sales and nurture client relationships?
AI will help marketers enhance their customer service, making the interactions seamless. Marketers would now know what insights or feedback are coming from touch points that could help stimulate the marketing efforts. The value within AI-based systems is that they do not function as a mere interaction platform, but rather as a real-life marketer capable of adapting to changing consumer requirements. This helps to maintain deeper brand relations and enhance the overall brand experience.
Bottom line, AI is on a roll in the marketing domain. It can provide endless possibilities of ramping up the marketing efforts in the right direction and can overhaul the marketing strategies for superior efficiencies. The power of technology and AI is huge enough to be prepared for a smooth ride ahead. AI is transformative. AI is the present future. AI is here to help marketers take marketing to the next level.
Dr. Anil Kaul is the Co-founder and CEO of Absolutdata. A prominent and well-known personality in the field of analytics and research, Kaul has more than twenty years of experience in marketing, strategic consulting and quantitative modeling. Before starting Absolutdata in 2001, Kaul worked at Personify and McKinsey & Company. He has a Ph.D. in quantitative marketing from Cornell University.
