Philip Kotler may have given the most succinct definition of Marketing as what Satisfies needs and wants through an exchange process. But today, as the subject gets more sophisticated and specialized, one is compelled to reduce it to a simpler form, which probably would define it as the art and science of letting people know more about your product or the services you offer. All things remaining equal, marketing would just be a series of steps that leads to a desired outcome. But You, I and Freud, who have collectively spent countless hours in understanding people with their diverse set of tastes and motivations have perhaps concluded that every effort is plagued by errors due to broad generalizations.
But all this started to change with automation which signaled the start of bringing scientific order into marketing by organizing consumer data sets. Artificial Intelligence (AI) though promises a much more exciting phase of quantifying the unknown and futureproofing marketing decisions with much more elaborate data sets. There you go, not so simple, yet so very exciting.
How AI Affects Marketing
We live in a fully digital world and the affairs of this world are such that every action leaves a traceable footprint. For example, reading this article goes into your digital history. The same thing happens when you watch a video, download an app, or even purchase an item online.
The good thing about all these is that vital information about your online habits is being collected and processed in the hopes of understanding your consumption behavior. Hopefully, this will then serve as a model which will help in predicting your future preferences.
Now, let’s take a moment to remove the lens from your back and then direct it to the world. There are about 3 billion active internet users who have a similar digital footprint. Imagine if you had just a fraction of these people as your clients. Is it possible to glean vital information from their history?
Yes. This is just what AI and big data promises marketers.
Some AI Techniques Which Will Impact Marketing
It is well established that there’s no rule of thumb approach to running a business since each organization has its unique challenges. However, there are four commonly-adopted statistical techniques to AI, broadly classified into the following areas – Supervised, Unsupervised and Semi-supervised.
1. Regression
This involves predictions about the future value (usually of sales or revenue) based on previous data. For example, predicting height from weights of individuals, or of sales price of products.
2. Classification
Here, you group the data you have at hand and assign it to a category. For example, you group customers who buy baby items under the “parenting” tag.
3. Clustering
Here, you scour streams of data to identify common patterns, mostly based on the consumption behavior. Example, understanding or deriving ad spends effectively by distributing target audience into cluster segments.
4. Reinforcement Learning
This involves allowing the machine learn in an enabling environment in the hopes of optimizing a process. In this case, the online store is the environment and the goal is to optimize sales.
While Regression and Classification fall under the category of Supervised Learning, Clustering is a classic example for Unsupervised Learning and Reinforcement learning for Semi-supervised Learning.
Why AI Would Revolutionize Marketing
With the help of advanced concepts of Machine Learning, you can explore a myriad of data about your clients and then use the information gleaned to serve these customers better. Before now, this was deemed impossible due to the effort required to see it through. However, AI made our machines smarter and they are now positioned to further the cause.
Peter Thiel in his book, “Zero to One”, clearly demonstrated that machines are excellent at going through billions of terabytes of data in search of patterns. Humans, on the other hand, are less adept at this, but we are good at analyzing these patterns. Hence, the collaboration. AI has a lot to offer your business. The paragraphs that ensue will explain a few of these benefits.
AI Will Enhance User Experience
Whether you’re selling goods or you’re providing professional services, one popular quote you must’ve stumbled across is “Customer is KING!” Your goal is to make the experience of your client top-notch. This will not only ensure repeat orders, it will propel the customer to spread the good word about your brand.
Businesses are now going a step further, chatbots are not being used as the default means of communicating with customers. These chatbots are predesigned to relate to customers based on the data available. In addition to this, the emergence of Augmented Reality promises to personalize the experience of clients even further.
AI Will Significantly Reduce Your Marketing Budget
It’s not always possible, but marketers strive to produce campaigns which will appeal to a wider audience. In marketing, “One man’s meat is another’s poison” doesn’t count. Every person has to love the deliciously prepared meat or tofu perhaps. There’s no sure way of knowing what will get the attention of your audience. However, AI attempts to do this.
When a digital marketing campaign is launched, there are metrics which, when monitored, provides valuable insight into how well the campaign fared. Over time, these metrics will help you identify what customers react positively to and this will help you create well-tailored ads which drive your point home. Rather than sending out 10 ads, you send just one (based on the analysis of ten other ads).
Conclusion
Without a doubt, AI is an integral part of any successful firm’s marketing unit. Check out Amazon, Tesla, Google, Facebook, even Nike. AI is an all-encompassing solution which will be of immense benefit to your organization. The concept of AI transcends sales or leads, it is what brings about a customer-centric approach to business. While awareness maybe limited and adoption still slow, many a Marketing Decision Maker would definitely be open to the infinite possibilities in integrating AI into their everyday decision making.
Complex it may be. Whoever thought that the future would one day belong to the present or perhaps the present be the future itself. Well, now that we are done with the tough parts, let’s just chew over this.
Still confused? Or maybe just apprehensive about taking your first baby steps in AI. We at Biztruss would love to help you with this. So while you get busy with your awesome AI plans, we’ll get busy with rolling out our next superblog here. So long then!
