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!

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Digital transformation, therefore, requires a viable strategy. In fact, studies show that the strategy has a greater effect than the technologies. The strategy lays out a blueprint for adopting technologies in the most effective way. Such a strategy will most likely increase efficiency, enhance the decision-making processes, elevate customer experience, and enhance employee retention.

Six Steps to Implementing an Effective Digital Transformation Strategy

1. Outlining the Objective of the Digital Transformation Strategy

The first step in creating a digital transformation strategy is painting the big picture. This implies defining the expected outcomes of a successful digitization as per the impact of the transformation on productivity, the customer, the employees, and the decision-making process of the business. The clearly defined objectives serve as a guide for adopting the technologies.

2. Defining the Modules

The next step is to define modules that can help improve the customer experiences and employee satisfaction. In this step, goals are defined to bring about the fulfillment of the objectives. Note here that the most important aspect of this step isn’t the technologies, but how the technologies can be used in the most effective way to improve customer engagement and experience.

3. Taking an Inventory of the Technologies Currently in Use

This step entails a reality check of how close the business is to achieving the objectives of the digital transformation strategy. It helps businesses identify which area they need to start the transformation from. By assessing the software and digital technologies currently in use, the business can determine the actual technologies that need to be installed, updated or replaced.

4. Identifying Prospective Solutions and Vendors

With the transformation objectives clearly defined, the goals that lead to the accomplishment of the objectives clearly outlined, and the existing technologies assessed, the next step in digital transformation is to brainstorm potential technological solutions that can be integrated into the current technological ecosystem to help bring about the accomplishment of the transformation objectives.

Afterward, the business needs to then choose the vendors for the selected technology with due diligence.

5. Integrating a Digital Adoption Platform (DAP)

In some businesses, especially those with a model that’s highly dependent on digital technology, it could be easy to implement traditional training sessions to help teach employees software skills. However, in most businesses, traditional training sessions may not turn out to be an effective way to suit employees to the digital transformation strategy.

A Digital Adoption Platform features learning applications such as Walkme and AppLearn that efficiently supplement traditional training sessions to provide help employees as well as customers with an effective guidance for adapting to the changing technological environment of the business.

6. Creating a Schedule for Implementation

This is where all the steps outlined above are co-opted into a tenable plan. The business needs to come up with a plan and timelines for implementing all the aforementioned step so as to implement the strategy in a tenable way with little or no hiccups.

A veritable plan with timelines also helps provide employees, stakeholders, and customers with a heads up of the expected changes to elicit support for the transformation from all parties involved.

Conclusion

Even businesses that are doing well offline today will come in need of a digital transformation strategy sometime in the future in order to stay in the competition as competitors incorporate digital technologies that provide them with a competitive edge. In a world that’s experiencing unprecedented technological advancements, a digital transformation strategy is fast becoming indispensable to businesses in nearly every industry.

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Imagine a world where Facebook, Apple, Tesla, and other giants in the tech industry failed to employ the right platform for their then inchoate business? The world would not forgive their mistake! Not only would their choice of tech limit/bolster the expansion of their startup, it will also affect the operability of the business.

Unfortunately, a lot of entrepreneurs, when building their business, only focus on the front end and leave this crucial decision to the developer. Unbeknownst to them, the technology stack selected has a tremendous impact on the success of any startup. Here are some questions to ask when considering your options.

Mobile Applications or Web?

This debate transcends the age-long Apple vs Android, Marvel vs DC, Coke vs Pepsi argument. In order to decide, you need to consider your consumers carefully. In 2017, research showed that adults in the US will spend almost 3 hours daily on apps while they barely spend 34 minutes on the web. However, if your service can only be delivered via a website, the choice is made easier for you.

LAMP or MEAN?

A stack which consists of Linux operating system, Apache web server, MySQL database, and PHP, Perl or Python language is regarded as one of the most reliable stacks. They are popular, widely supported, and offer enhanced security features. However, the MySQL database is not as feature-intensive as other options.

MEAN, on the other hand, is a contemporary stack with a wide range of capabilities. It consists of MongoDB database, Express.js and AngularJS framework, with a Node.js language environment. Even though it is very flexible and scalable, it might prove complicated.

A careful evaluation of the different pros and cons and how they affect your startup will help you make an informed decision on your choice of a stack.

What is the Purpose of Your Startup?

It is important to first figure out how your technology will be utilized before implementation. If, for example, you employ a very responsive platform suited for e-commerce for your business; an enterprise mobile application, it will turn out to be a debacle. This should also affect the inherent functionality and usability of the system.

Is There Opportunity to Scale?

The aim of any startup is to become mature and scalable. Your technology stack will go a long way in determining the growth of your business. To give you perspective, Facebook started in 2004 with no inkling of the population explosion to follow. In 2010, they hit 500 million users. 5 years later, their population tripled. And now in 2018, the figure is put around 3 billion.

Your technology stack should support the addition of functionality, services, and integration with more sophisticated technology. For instance, systems that support Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) are reputed to be more market-friendly and they easily adapt to the demands of the market.

While comparA key advantage of choosing MEAN is the fact that JavaScript code can be reused for both the server and the client. But this is rarely ever seen in practice because it will help maintain security if the client and server code bases are kept separate.

But using JavaScript for both the front-end and the back-end makes life easier for developing teams to switch between the two. It makes the workflow homogeneous and also enables two groups of full stack developers to work well together on the application as a whole.

It’s no secret that it can be quite a challenge to switch between PHP or Python for the server and then use JavaScript and HTML for the client. So if you’re more comfortable with JavaScript than other languages, MEAN is the right choice for you.

But on the other hand, end users often use ad blockers and disable JavaScript because of privacy concerns. Most browser extensions also allow the users to actively select the scripts that are permitted to run, so your app won’t work if it’s completely based on JavaScript.

Disabling JavaScript has rendered many websites useless, so the battle continues between users and websites. This has even led to some users being banned from certain websites as this type of user behavior can break web applications.

So although JavaScript comes with the advantage of making your web app look modern, it might not be a feasible solution to reach all users. Further, JavaScript also slows down websites, so its popularity can diminish significantly in the near future. So all this has to be taken into account when making your stack selection.

However, you can also avoid going heavy with JavaScript at the front end and take advantage of the speed offered by Node.JS. But at the same time, PHP is also just as fast when optimized.

Traditional multi-threaded Apache setups are resource heavy, so LAMP can also be an option that ends up being slow. But PHP can be significantly optimized by Nginx or Lightspeed. Yet, replacing Apache with Nginx can be quite a headache to configure.

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