In a survey ran by Forrester, nearly half of B2C marketing decision-makers claimed to have plans to implement AI in marketing.
While applying artificial intelligence in marketing may seem straight out of science fiction, the reality is that AI will completely transform the sector within the next decade. In fact, this future-forward technology is already able to identify emotions in order to speedily solve problems while enhancing personalisation. What’s more, as it delivers relevant automated content at scale, artificial intelligence boosts the ROI of marketing campaigns and ultimately improves business efficiency throughout the customer journey.
Read on to learn about the role that AI is playing in marketing teams, and how this technology – which Forrester reports as something that must become an ‘essential part of modern marketing’ – enhances a business’ value.
Marketing teams can look at AI to navigate a complex digital environment
Marketers are interested in artificial intelligence. In a survey ran by Forrester nearly half of B2C marketing decision-makers claimed to have plans to implement AI in marketing.
According to Forrester, ‘This is because they face significant complexity and massive amounts of data generated by:
- Large, fragmented markets. Marketers face complexities including time zones; widely diverse cultures, languages, and religions; and various stages of demographic transition, economic development, and digital maturity. The sheer scale and diversity of any addressable market makes marketing there a daunting task.
- Unique digital ecosystems. For instance, in Asia, local digital players have formed unique digital ecosystems in diverse market environments. These include Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent in China; Line in Japan; Kakao and Naver in South Korea; and Go-Jek in Indonesia. Each offers distinct marketing rules and solutions to give marketers a lot more to manage than just Facebook and Google.
- Complicated, mobile-first customer journeys. Mobile internet penetration is at 41% and is expected to reach 50% by 2020. Mobile blurs the boundary between online and offline and makes customer journeys increasingly complicated. Mobile consumers demand immediacy and relevance. Managing the sophistication of cross-channel, personalized customer engagement is a big challenge for marketers.”
Enhanced personalised engagement
AI technology helps to ensure that customers are constantly engaged and satisfied. Sifting through endless amounts of customer data and turning it into clear, applicable information can be a daunting task. AI has an unparalleled ability to solve this issue by gathering, analysing and interpreting customer data from various sources.
By applying machine learning to identify customers’ needs, marketing teams can more effectively and efficiently meet their demands. For example, Asia Miles uses their internal data to master their marketing processes, removing the need for vendors. As Adrian Hado, Head of Insight, Analytics and Customer Experience at Asia Miles explains, ‘Based on every behaviour we collect and how it changes over time, we can predict the most relevant offering to each customer at the moment’.
Optimised and streamlined marketing channels
In today’s digital era, wait times have a highly negative impact on customer experience. Today’s marketers must optimise and streamline their channels in order to support customers wherever, whenever and on whatever platform is most convenient for them. However, for most companies, marketing initiatives that provide 24/7 support simply isn’t possible without using computers and automated services.
The solution lies in AI. It can easily be applied across marketing channels, solving problems related to availability and response time – enhancing customer engagement efficiency. For example, AI can integrate external data to determine the best times to engage with customers on each channel – whether it be social media, email or live chats – allowing marketing teams to better allocate their resources.
Likewise, AI can identify the preferred marketing channel for each individual lead. As Forrester emphasises, this simply isn’t something humans are capable of. In this regard, artificial intelligence saves companies a huge amount of time, money and effort, while simultaneously delivering both business and customer value.
The role of AI in marketing teams
In today’s customer-centred business environment, marketers must learn how to listen to customers’ challenges and engage them in a more personalised way. To this end, AI provides marketing teams with new perspectives on customers’ demands – which in turn, enhances the leads they can give sales teams and increases revenue, while benefiting the customers in real time.
From smart chatbots that are able to create original answers to customers’ questions to digital billboards that can read the facial expressions of any viewer, marketers must learn how to work alongside AI in order to more efficiently obtain and activate relevant data. At the end of the day, this technology is here to stay. In fact, research by Servion Global Solutions predicts that by 2025, 95% of all customer interactions will be handled by AI.
redk as AI leaders
Taking all of these benefits into consideration – notably saving time and effort while increasing revenue – it’s no surprise that smart businesses across sectors are beginning to pour money into AI-augmented marketing campaign strategies.
By implementing machine learning, automation and big data analysis, AI technology can provide marketing teams with instant, informed insights and hyper-personalised customer interactions so they can become more strategic and creative with their campaigns.
