Artificial Intelligence (AI) has come a long way and created a buzz in the industry from the day of its inception. AI, an umbrella term used to describe technologies that simulate human intelligence, is one of the hottest topics across a number of sectors. AI technique teaches a computer to parse data in a contextual manner to deliver requested information, provide analysis, or trigger an event based on the findings. Taking over many industries, today AI is rapidly changing the approach professionals go about their business.
The rise in AI powered marketing technique is taking away the load off from marketers and delegating to machines, thereby letting the marketers focus on the challenges and efforts on marketing that matters. However, before utilising AI, the businesses should meet primary criteria, of which includes:
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Digitised, trackable marketing & sales processes - Organisations looking to leverage AI in their marketing strategies, must have a large volume of information to train the AI systems. An AI system operating via machine learning can neither calibrate nor optimise results such as opt-in rates, click-through rates, lead scoring and sales script prompting.
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Data science talent or in-house AI - If you don’t have data science talent or inhouse AI then it isn’t possible to adopt AI technology. You need to have a team of data science experts or hands-on experience in AI to teach your AI system.
Today, AI is evolving and are helping marketers to develop insightful & effective campaigns. Some of the added advantages of using AI in marketing are:
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Customer segregation - “ The aim of marketing is to understand the customers so well the product or service fits him and sells well” - Peter Drucker. To meet the customer’s expectations, marketers must deliver the right message, at the right time, to the right customer; this can be accomplished with customer segmentation. AI technology lets marketers segregate their customers and understand exactly are their expectations. With this information, marketers can focus on the specific requirements of their audience and develop a long-lasting relationship with them.
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Streamlines marketing efforts - AI driven technology provides marketers with a vast amount of quality data at scale, via the use of deep learning. Deep learning doesn’t require human operators to analyse outputs. These algorithms can pick up detailed data by mimicking activities of the human brain. Therefore, marketers can utilise deep learning to understand, analyse and develop smarter campaigns.
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Accuracy - AI predictive analytics aims to make accurate predictions by analysing present and past customer behavior patterns. Using the collected data, marketers can include insights into their marketing strategies and develop an optimised & targeted campaign.
AI has great potential for marketing applications and over the next three to five years, we will obtain a user-friendly tool that does not demand huge data streams and high-level AI skills. Although the first versions will be challenging to work with and can be accessed only by biggies (as it is quite expensive), soon they will become accessible to small & mid-sized businesses as well.