Cutting Through the Noise
In the midst of a highly noisy landscape, it has become increasingly difficult to break through to customers successfully. Overcrowded e-inboxes, stuffed mailboxes, and constant unsolicited cold calls have led to a customer that has adapted to noise. This adaptation has created a need for new, innovative marketing techniques. So what’s next in marketing? Artificial Intelligence Marketing. Over at Semeon Analytics, we believe that Ai is going to have an enormous role in the upcoming years, and we aren’t the only ones. According to the 2017 Salesforce Annual State of Marketing Report, 51% of marketers have Ai embedded into their strategy and in the next two years 27% more plan to adopt it. For those of you who do not want to do the math, that is 78% of marketers that are using Artificial Intelligence in their strategy!
Yes. Ai is a buzzword. It is an all encompassing concept that basically describes algorithms that mimic the functions the human brain can do. Currently, these algorithms are highly specific, and general purpose Ai is still a while away. As a text analytics company that uses machine learning to provide actionable insight from business data, Semeon, has seen the benefits artificial intelligence can provide to marketers. Despite the hype around Ai in marketing, there are four major trends that we are seeing within the industry where a value is already being created.
The Trends
Enhanced Customer Insights through Artificial Intelligence Marketing
Despite what any marketer or sales person will tell you, understanding the customer is still a problem for many brands. A study from IBM and eConsultancyfound that 81 percent of companies say they have a holistic view of their customers. And yet, only 37 percent of customers agree that their favourite retailer understands them. This is a huge discrepancy, but artificial intelligence is now being used to create more actionable insights that are allowing brands to better understand the needs of their customer. The main driver of this enhanced customer understanding lies in data. Ai has given companies the power to analyse huge amounts of data from numerous sources and big data has given way to a new wave of consumer insights, but be careful not to fall into the traps.
Mass Personalization
Yes, it sounds like an oxymoron but it is possible with the power of Ai. Now, more than ever before we are able to customize marketing campaigns to a larger audience and this goes much further than putting the recipients first name in the subject line. Now it is about predicting what the customer wants and providing it to them at the right time: 65% of B2B buyers are likely to switch brands if a company doesn’t make an effort to personalize its communications to them. Ai is giving brands the ability to act quickly off of actionable insights — often in a predictive capacity before the consumer knows what they want.
Eliminate Repetitive Tasks
This is not marketing specific but is going to make a huge difference in the future and this is a problem area that Ai is already starting to solve. The automation of mundane takes is allowing employees to focus on strategic initiatives and being creative.
Increased Customer Experience
“Hi [Your Name Here], how may I help you?” This is no longer an uncommon message to receive while on a companies website, but what many people do not know is that a good portion of these ‘chatbots’ has some form of artificial intelligence embedded in them. Whether it is a fully functional bot using natural language processing like Siri, or an Ai assisted bot that is helping consumers with basic requests, it is having an impact on the customer experience. Why is this important? Because 68% of marketing leaders say their company is increasingly competing with customer experience. The more you are able to assist your customer at a difficult touch point, the more they will be willing to continue along with their purchase.
What is the future role of humans in marketing?
For now, the same as it was before. We are nowhere near the point that a lot of people think we are. As Gary Marcus, a professor of psychology and neural science at New York University says, “Artificial Intelligence is colossally hyped these days, but the dirty little secret is that it still has a long, long way to go”. General purpose Ai has the possibility to put marketers out of a job but currently, Artificial Intelligence is a tool that we are going to use to break through the noisy environment surrounding the customer.
