“The use of artificial intelligence in business operations and practices has become a necessary rite of passage into the 21st century. 47% of digitally mature organizations (those with advanced digital practices) already have a defined AI strategy, and 84% of business executives agree that the incorporation of AI allows their company to sustain a competitive advantage.” -Therese Palmere, Aumcore
Technology’s Role in Marketing
In today’s highly digitalized world, marketers are forced to revisit the customer ‘touchpoints’ within their respective industries. Both the market and consumer behaviours are evolving daily with the introduction of new technologies.
Marketers are tasked with newer KPIs to attract, engage, and convert customers. Consumers lives are dominated by technology so, naturally, marketers need to use the same technologies to interact with consumers. From emails to Augmented Reality solutions, Digital marketers have so many more tools they can use creatively.
The primary success of digital marketing is not the interface or the medium. It is the measurements that data behind these technologies permit. The insights this data reveals have transformed traditional marketing practices. The pinnacle of the most refined data set is witnessed in “Artificial Intelligence”.
Artificial Intelligence and Digital Marketing
Various business functions are still struggling with AI and its uses. For marketers, however, AI is the technology that will accelerate digital marketing results. The improved learning algorithms, data storage capabilities, and processing power indicate that the future of digital marketing is going to be AI heavy, known as AI marketing.
The ability to collect, analyze, apply and learn from data, is transforming digital marketing strategies to be AI led. From finance to retail to tech, AI is changing the way brands do business. For marketers, it provides companies with the ability to engage with their customers as individuals.
How to Leverage AI for Digital Marketing
AI (if used rightly) provides a competitive edge by:
- Helping Companies Understand the Audience Better – AI analyses data to predict buying behaviors of the customers.
- Optimize User Experience – AI interprets data to provide the audience with what they need and make access to it easier than before.
- Improve the Effectiveness of Marketing – AI development has ended guesswork, creating a more engaging digital marketing strategy; by personalizing the marketing message.
- Increase Productivity – Using AI systems, repetitive tasks can be automated, including online chats. This increases productivity and saves both time and money.
This is supported by a 2020 Deloitte global survey of early AI adopters. The survey showed that three of the top five AI objectives were marketing-oriented: enhancing existing products and services, creating new products and services, and enhancing relationships with customers. (1)
The bottom line is, AI gives the ability to deliver unparalleled results.
Which AI Tools Should You Employ?
The great thing about leveraging AI in digital marketing is, marketers can choose different tools to target different aspects of the marketing strategy. For example, a small business with limited resources for marketing can opt for an AI tool that will help to boost advertising capabilities.
For a company looking to gain an advantage over its competitors, an SEO-based AI tool can outrank competitors on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). Whether marketing for a startup or a large corporation, there’s a plethora of AI tools for digital marketing to explore and implement.
AI chatbots
AI chatbots offer a range of possibilities:
Hours of the marketing team’s manual chats can be saved by introducing a chatbot that can extract the same information through intelligent conversations. Marketers can go beyond the traditional \”one-to-one\” form of customer interaction to \”one-to-many\” through a well-trained chatbot.
Chatbots can interact with several customers at the same time and in different time zones.
AI chatbots don\’t need to rest, so they can answer customer queries around the clock and in real-time. Not only does this mean they are highly efficient, but they can also provide support outside office hours, improving customer experience.
The development of Natural Language Processing and machine learning means that AI based customer service can deliver a better service experience.
Email marketing/In-Mail Messages
Strong AI, helps brands to personalize email marketing campaigns based on user behaviors, meaning marketers can send out emails that are triggered by certain actions. This enables them to deliver relevant emails to customers\’ inboxes. Also, subject lines, product recommendations, and messaging are chosen based on a customer\’s behavior.
AI-powered expert systems like LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator also provide digital marketers with the option to, ‘In-mail’ message the right customer. The right customer holds key positions and needs to be targeted at the right place and time. This ensures that the company’s message always reaches the relevant person, usually unreachable otherwise. Sales teams can then engage with the prospect in a natural conversation, with a higher likelihood of conversion.
AI driven digital advertising
Digital advertising is one of the most successful areas to have adopted artificial intelligence. Platforms like Facebook, Google, and Instagram analyze users\’ information. Insights into gender, age, interests, demographics, and other aspects show users the most relevant advertisements, improving the performance of digital ads.
Due to the data available on these platforms, it allows marketers to fine-tune the audience to the dot. This helps in making strategic decisions about where to allocate budgets and whom to target. In turn, this reduces digital advertising waste and produces confidence in spending that delivers the best possible results.
Fine Tune Marketing Content
AI can analyze and provide deep insights into the behavior of targeted customers. Therefore, companies get a better understanding of what type of content works best for the target audience. Digital marketers can then create or share the right form of content.
According to SerpWatch, an online tracking company, “40% of millennials trust video content the most,” (3). It is the second most effective form of content marketing after blogs. Using AI insights, brands targeting this audience will be better able to ascertain which relevant content to create. Whether this is a short video clip for Tik Tok or flashy stories for Instagram or relatively longer videos for YouTube.
Create and Curate
On top of providing insights to create content, various AI tools also provide marketers with strong capabilities to curate content. An example is YouTube’s recommendation system. This provides relevant suggestions for videos that users might be interested in based on their previous behavior.
Marketers have ample opportunity to keep users engaged in the so-called ‘rabbit hole’ of similar content. AI allows a company to suggest content to a web page visitor based on their interests.
While AI is making inroads in marketing, market trends suggest that it will play a much larger role across the function in the coming years. Given the potential AI brings, CMOs must incorporate AI applications (similar to the ones mentioned above) into their marketing strategies.
Digital Marketers – “Laggards” or “Leaders”?
Although formally the term, “Digital Marketing” was introduced in the 1990s, technically it has been around since the advent of email. Marketers have generally been the first to try new innovative ideas to break away from the clutter and capture audience attention.
Marketers have a 360 degrees understanding of the customer and are constantly thinking about the target audience. They create “personas”, meaning they, by definition, represent the best interest of the customer.
Today, marketers are dependent on engineers to understand the possible uses of technology and apply it for marketing purposes. As AI becomes more commonplace within the digital touchpoints for any customer, there is a need to understand the technological possibilities. Marketers need to push the boundaries further and play a leading role within organizations.
According to a report published by McKinsey Global Institute, it is estimated that the impact of AI on marketing and sales will reach up to $5.9 trillion annually. Forward-thinking marketers are already using AI to segment customers better, achieve a higher level of customer engagement and apply dynamic content strategies. AI in marketing will significantly increase productivity, efficiency, and performance. Marketers who have incorporated AI into their marketing toolkit are shaping the way businesses engage with customers in the future.
References
1- Thomas H. Davenport, Abhijit Guha, and Dhruv Grewal, How to Design an AI Marketing Strategy, Harvard Business Review, Magazine, July–August 2021
2- Georgi Todorov, 65 Artificial Intelligence Statistics for 2021 and Beyond, SEMRush, Feb 2021
3- Mind Blowing Video Marketing Statistics 2021, July 2021
