Introduction:

The marketing landscape is changing, and artificial intelligence is on the forefront of this change. Customer expectations are growing and the demand for a one-to-one personalized experience has taken center stage. As these changes are happening, many marketers are turning to artificial intelligence to supplement and enhance their marketing strategies.

If you’re just getting started with AI marketing or looking to enhance the strategies you already have in place, this ultimate guide to AI marketing will help you dive further into the intricacies of using artificial intelligence in marketing.

Today’s marketing decision-making happens in real time, every day, and artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) give marketers a hands-free way to quickly and effectively respond to data from a customer or potential buyer and tailor fit a product and buying experience. Buyers on the fence can automatically receive special incentives to buy, and other customers can be directed to related products and services based on data-driven insight. This single resource brings you up to speed and fully prepares you to talk about and develop strategies for using AI and ML to increase revenue, lower costs, boost customer satisfaction, and expand the possibilities of how your organization engages its customers.

What Is AI Marketing?

For many marketers, the problem with marketing today isn’t a lack of knowledge or skill to create personalized campaigns, but a shortage of time. With so many opportunities to collect so many data from customers, there’s no way for a single person to take that data, uncover insights, and then set up automated marketing campaigns for each individual. Human-driven personalization just doesn’t scale.

Artificial intelligence marketing is the solution to that problem. AI marketing is a method of leveraging customer data and AI concepts like machine learning in marketing strategies to anticipate your customer’s next move and improve the customer journey through relevant content and individualized automation.

The goal of AI marketing is to free up marketing teams from doing data analysis so they can focus on strategy, content, and creative work.

Why AI marketing is so important?

AI, simply put, takes the guesswork out of day to day activities. It makes administrative decisions for us and automates our everyday life so we can focus on things that matter – like relationship building in sales, or contact and working with prospects rather than filing reports. AI also helps marketers by tracking prospect’s interest and moving them down the sales funnel. AI would process large amounts of data, saving us hours of labor. Artificial Intelligence helps marketing department time their marketing strategies better as well precisely by analyzing the aforementioned data and delivering interpretations.

Here is a quick list that summarizes just a few aspects where AI is applied in business:

• Optimizing follow-up process
• Sorting high quality leads from marketing efforts to pass to leads (eg. sorting through emails, understanding email responses, doing chat conversations,)
• Streamline sales activity so they focus on leads that matter and not waste time on those that don’t
• Allowing business to respond to their prospects 24/7 if they have a question in the middle of the night (i.e time difference)
• Able to suggest the right message for the right person at the right time during the lead generation process
• Freeing up time for sales representatives by executing administrative and routine tasks (i.e scheduling meetings, sending calendar invites,)
• Training sales reps by identifying when and why they are struggling, identifying potential weaknesses; observing high performing reps and providing guidance for lower performing reps
• Managing subscriptions, renewals to happen, up-selling opportunities
• Personalization for meeting – suggesting right content to bring to conversation, meeting.

The demand for personalization has now exceeded the human’s capacity to scale it. But by using AI to bridge the gap between data and execution, the machine can analyze data and provide actionable insights so you can focus on providing the best experience for your customers.

5 Examples of AI Marketing:

1. Personalized Product Recommendations:

Product recommendations are nothing new to retailers as many have deployed them on their websites and in emails, but usually they offered the same items to every person that visited or purchased a certain product. AI marketing allows you to display product recommendations that are personalized to each individual customer. Instead of seeing the same items as every other shopper, customers see items specifically picked out for them based on their past purchases and browser behavior.

2. Ad Optimization:

From search engines to websites, digital ads have played a prevalent role in marketing strategies over the last 10 years. Now, with the implementation of AI, ads are becoming more targeted. AI marketing allows marketers to use customer data to serve up ads that are only pertinent to each user. If a user interacted with different clothing brands on Instagram, they might be served up an ad for a new clothing service based on browsing behavior.

3. Send Time Optimization:

Optimizing send times is another example of AI marketing. Many marketers rely solely on A/B testing to determine the best time to send out all of their emails. The problem with this practice is that no two humans interact with their email exactly the same. Because of that, we need a way to deploy emails on an individual basis. Send Time Optimization uses AI to determine the best time to email for each individual customer and can deploy emails at the exact moment a customer is most likely to engage.

4. Individualized Incentives:

When companies send mass incentives, they risk losing money on shoppers who would have paid full price without an incentive. Using AI to analyze customer behavior, you can identify which customers need an incentive to make a purchase and which ones will purchase without one. Sending these personalized incentives not only makes customers feel valued by the brand, but it also keeps brands from discounting too much of their inventory.

5. Virtual Assistants:

When you think of voice-activated commerce, Amazon and Google are probably top of mind. While many brands are beginning to shift their focus to optimizing for voice search, these two giants are already capitalizing on the potential of voice AI. From commands to product searches, submitted in writing or by voice, they serve up content almost instantly based on your request – and are collecting a deluge of additional data on customers that can be used in the future as search queries are archived.

How to Prepare Marketing for the Future:

It’s evident that AI and its related technologies will run parallel to nearly all marketing tactics in the future. Successful marketing departments will identify the change ahead and take these steps to get ready for growth.

Hire and train the right employees.AI programs will only be as effective as the staff that uses them. Marketers need training on new technology as it emerges, and AI is no exception. When hiring, look for employees with a wide range of skills and a flexible willingness to embrace change. Invest in talent that understands currently available technology and knows how to leverage its effectiveness.

Create voice-search friendly content. Currently, 20 to 25 percent of queries are voice searches, and that number is about to boom. Plan ahead in website redesigns and content creation.

Assume your customers use AI-enabled devices. Design for clients who don’t just use smart phones but have artificial intelligence in their refrigerators, vehicles, and washing machine. If users start to rely on AI to create grocery lists and decide what gym clothes to order, how can you best reach them?

Conclusion:

Artificial intelligence technology is well aligned with its literal meaning: computational algorithms that intend to replicate human intelligence and, ideally, improve upon it. In the context of marketing, this can be translated to the emotional intelligence and strong understanding marketers need to develop toward their customers to be successful. And just like in real life, this is a learning process based off experiences and observed behaviors.

In the end, customers will continue to be emotionally drawn and connected to brand that give them a sense of being understood in their individuality; independent of whether that understanding has been developed manually or artificially.

“Assess the requirements, Explore the opportunities and Implement the changes and Succeed – Sky is the limit”.