Hey marketer, why you should just let AI help you
Most of us don’t think even for a second while clicking on product recommendations that Amazon throws up on the screen saying ‘those who bought this also bought…’ Or, when our smartphone gets the music playlist almost nearly right based on what time of the day it is. You see, virtual assistants such as Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, Amazon’s Alexa are all around us. Do we even pause and think how these technologies are improving our lives? How they just ‘know’ the right thing to say? Have you ever tried telling Siri she’s silly? – She’ll come back with ‘I won’t dignify that with an answer’.
Ever wonder what happens when you ask Google’s nameless assistant to look for the nearest Mexican restaurant? – Not only does it give you the directions, it will also alert you if the place will be closed by the time you arrive. This is the power of Artificial Intelligence & analytics at play. And, we’re only getting started. We are all consumers of Artificial intelligence technology because it is a part of our day-to-day.
As a marketer, do you realise that your consumer is growing more and more dependent on technology? The more the consumer uses digital, greater the number of opportunities you have to map them.
Oh, and by the way, you don’t have to be Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook to be able to use AI effectively. Tools are already available to get your AI strategy off the ground.
Today, you know almost how much a particular consumer spends on groceries, time he/she spent on which app or website, how frequently and at what times during the day, and what do they do there. This is all information that you use to map your customer’s journey – your data. You have software to analyse it, keeping your business objectives in mind. Analytics will tell you what you need to do next in order to bring your customer back to your website/app/store. Isn’t this great?
Analytics can help you understand your consumer’s search history and browsing behaviour, and what exactly they are looking for. It can show you at what point your consumer chose to exit your app without making a purchase and why.
You will know if they have social media presence, you can listen to their conversations by following them, and find out if they talk about your brand – listening software tools can easily help you do this. If they do mention your brand, you can respond to them in real time. These responses, whether asking the consumer to share their phone number so you can contact them individually or replying to them in real time with an answer to their query, can all be automated.
Automate so that you don’t have to depend on an extensive team to answer routine and mundane queries on multiple platforms and channels; automate so that only those queries that need a higher level of assistance get passed onto your customer support team. Automate so that you don’t have to do those repetitive tasks such as updating the latest report in a central database system, or qualifying leads, or send follow-up emails to clients… and much, much more.
Featured Case Study: SBI MF Improved Online Sales by 54% using Cross-channel Marketing Automation
Not very long ago, to do all of this you needed extensive teams on the ground to make & maintain contact with the consumer, carry out elaborate campaigns to attract consumers and to remind them about your brand; and finally, have an army of people to research and collate reports. Now, all of this can be delivered with the 3 A’s: Analytics. Automate. Artificial Intelligence or AI (and ML, which is a sub-set of AI).
With AI, your marketing software can predict outcomes, such as fashion trends based on short-term sales, or when a customer is most likely to drop out of your sales funnel e.g. cart abandonment or hit ‘unsubscribe’ on your email campaign. AI can help you optimise your marketing mix by telling you which set of messages are getting a better response over which channel i.e. emails or BPNs, or calls.
You, the Modern Marketer, can sit back and strategise better with all these insights, invest your energies into how to creatively craft your messages, improving your consumer’s experience with your brand.
Wait is futile. Act Now. AI is here.
