AI Marketing Whaa???

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if marketers and data science teams could instantaneously have all the answers to their customer centric questions with the flip of a switch? Well, AI application to business functions has many promises to do just that, but marketing takes the lead by far in terms of content creation, customer churn reduction, and relationship improvement. The idea is that AI can improve operational efficiency (get more accurate results in less time) while helping marketers better understand their customers’ motivations in an ever-changing complex digital environment. What even is AI Marketing? Which type of AI should marketers pursue in order to get the most value? Is AI really all that it’s cracked up to be, and if so, will it grow in the future? We all know AI isn’t yet capable of advanced features, mostly automating processes so marketers can focus on harder tasks, and that AI will always lack human qualities such as empathy no matter how refined the technology becomes. While we can’t cover all the pros and cons of business’s latest darling, we can definitely delve into a few aspects of this newly emerging technology.

Let’s start with the first question. AI Marketing’s abilities range from customer experience improvement to boosting Return on Investment (ROI). It’s all about using the right technology (i.e. data analytics and machine learning) to arrive at more accurate insights, which can then help a company reach more of their audience in a better tailored way and in turn generate more revenue. Magnolia Market, for example, is a brick-and-mortar company that seamlessly transitioned into the digital sphere using Augmented Reality (AR). It offers shoppers who can’t arrive in-person test items in the comfort of their living rooms. This new feature served as a convenience for customers, differentiating themselves from competitors and building a stronger e-commerce presence.

As of now, there are only narrow uses of the new technology, repetitive tasks that require less human involvement but are nonetheless important to a project. Everyone seems to be jumping on the AI bandwagon, and quickly. Salesforce reported only 29% of marketing companies used AI to inform their business decision in 2018, a percentage that leaped to 84% in 2021, a whopping 186% growth rate. Similarly, the International Data Corporation (IDC) predicted global spending on AI services alone to be approximately $342 billion for 2021. A 2020 Deloitte global survey revealed three of their top five AI objectives are all marketing oriented activities, and the company even has a new crisply named initiative The Age of WithTM for their agglomeration of algorithms, AI, and analytics the company uses to study data and come up with conclusions.

Tune in next time to find out more about integrated machine learning, the recommended AI application marketers should pursue to obtain the most value.