The concept of marketing has been long present in our lives, ever since the days when people began selling stuff that they didn’t need. The flow of time brought new concepts and tools that caught people’s attention. And these new ideas have been utilized to increase the effectiveness of marketing techniques.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been such an idea in recent times. However, AI is so much more than just an Idea. It is the way forward for us. Artificial intelligence has started a revolution in our midst that is only just beginning.
“We’re still at the dawn of AI adoption,” -Jean-Luc Chatelain, CTO at Accenture Analytics
But there is no denying that artificial intelligence and machine learning has already had a significant impact on marketing and on marketers. The introduction of AI has changed the rule of the game. Using AI, the drastic increase is possible in the effectiveness in marketing techniques.
But how does someone uses this innovation to bring new life into his/her marketing strategy?
1. Chatbots
Let’s start with the most obvious use of AI in marketing, chatbots. Chatbots are there for marketing as much as for customer service. The AI learns from the interaction with the customers, analyzes their queries, needs and their preference.
Chatbots have unique access to gather knowledge directly from customers, determine patterns and spot persistent problem faced by them. This wealth of information is invaluable to marketers that are looking to get insights into the customer's mind.
The use of chatbots has been growing steadily. Businesses understand the need to get firsthand information from the customers. This information is used by business to figure out a business strategy. And whereas surveys can be annoying, people voluntarily provide information through chatbots.
On the part of customers, chatbots allow them to get the answers they require rapidly. The AI in today’s chatbots is sophisticated enough to understand and deliver the exact answer the customers are looking for.
2. Lead generation
One of the primary goals for any marketer is to find new strategies to help find quality leads for the sales team. AI is the next logical step to determine the strategy.
One of the fundamental truths of life is that a machine is able to process more data than a human can. And an intelligent machine is able to sift through millions of data to identify and isolate valuable leads.
Machine learning is also capable of analyzing human language from varied sources such as social media and CRM to create buyer personas for any situation.
An advanced AI system like Node is one of the greatest tools for lead generation. The system discovers and recommends new potential customers and advises marketers & salespeople on what strategy would be most effective in closing the deal.
“It mines the connections between people, companies, products, and places on the web," -Falon Fatemi, CEO at Node
3. Data-driven forecasting
Numbers, data, and facts, though may sound boring; they are what’s needed for pinpoint market prediction. With so much influx of data from various sources, it can be convoluted to sort through it all.
AI’s capability to handle a large volume of data and find reasons and patterns among them has given marketers unprecedented ability to make data-driven predictions and decisions.
While traditional analytics tools may become biased because of several inconsistent data, AI will learn from the history and make proper forecasting of the market. This reduces human effort and individuals can increase their effectiveness in marketing strategy.
Unlike the weather, where wrong forecasting can ruin a single day, predicting the market wrong can ruin a company. That is why data-driven forecasting is so vital and this an aspect where AI can take your business to the next level.
4. Advertising
Artificial Intelligence is most widely used in advertising and surprisingly, a lot of people aren’t aware that it is the AI that is aiding them. Whenever someone uses Google AdWords to buy keyword ad space, it is with the help of an AI.
The whole process of programmatic advertising, where automated buying and selling of ad inventory goes through uses artificial intelligence technologies.
The AI is a great catalyst for uncovering new and fruitful advertising channels that otherwise would remain undisclosed to businesses. An AI system has the ability to test out numerous ad platforms to optimize targeting.
Another form of AI systems use in advertising is the recommendations that customers receive about products. It is the Artificial Intelligence that learns from your browsing and clicks through of products, order history to understand your type of products you need and recommend thusly.
Advertising is also the most profitable platform that uses artificial intelligence. Marketers gain a huge boost in their PPC campaigns and advertising with a little help from machine intelligence and increase their effectiveness in marketing.
5. Automate marketing tasks
The introduction of AI has been one of the main reasons behind the sudden spike of marketing automation. It has made repetitive tasks easier to do, freed up time and made the whole process less bothersome.
Tasks like sending cold emails have always been a thorn for marketers, but it was still a necessary task. Automation tools lacked the human touch and made things feel like as they were in real life, machine-like.
AI has the capability to eliminate this feeling of fabrication by enabling your business to become more human. For example, Boomtrain, a marketing automation tool can create and send customized emails by learning from your previous interaction with that particular recipient.
Predictive analysis, semantic analysis and cognitive filtering, features of AI, greatly improve marketing automation. This allows the automation tools to transcend their set programming and provide unequable support to marketers.
Wrapping up
AI is effectively making our lives much more automated and easier, and that is spilling over to the business side of our life. Artificial intelligence tools like Retention Science frees the marketers by learning from customer interaction, making decision empowered by data, predicting recommendations and providing unique customized experience to each and every client.
This undoubtedly offers new opportunities to enhance and increase effectiveness in marketing tactics and allows business to become more successful.
Maruf Iftekhar Khan is an up-and-coming content writer currently working at Orbit Informatics, one of the leading web development firms in Bangladesh. His writing is a fusion of humor, technology, and logic to bring forth articles that are easy to connect with.
