There’s no doubt that artificial intelligence (AI) is here to stay.
In fact, you likely use AI every single day, be that using voice assistants on your phone, social media or even searching for stuff on Google, so many day-to-day tasks involve AI in one way or another.
So, it stands to reason that AI also factors into your digital marketing campaigns, but how does AI affect your digital marketing, what do you need to know, and how does this benefit your business?
In this article, we’ll answer all of the above questions and more, so let’s get started!
How does AI and machine learning work in digital marketing?
AI’s key purpose in marketing is to make the marketer’s life easier.
Jobs such as customer segmentation, data collection, data analysis and much more can all be handled (extremely rapidly) by AI, which means that laborious work that would historically take hours can now be done in a fraction of the time and with minimal human input.
Essentially, AI takes data and converts it into something that’s truly useful for you, saving your people time and your business money!
How can AI tools affect your digital marketing campaigns?
So, we understand that AI tools help to boost your speed and efficiency when planning and implementing a digital marketing campaign, but what exactly can you use AI for?
Advanced profiling
Every business understands the need for profiling. Without an in-depth understanding of your target audience, you won’t be able to tailor your marketing to match.
Knowing your ideal customer profile allows you to segment & customise emails and other content to meet their exact needs and expectations. In fact, Deloitte research suggests that simply including your customer name in your emails can boost open rates by 5.2%, while more bespoke emails see between an 11%-55% increase.
However, collating your customer data and customer experience into a handful of ideal customers would be incredibly time consuming (not to mention extremely dull).
Fortunately, AI just so happens to specialise in doing exactly this. AI enables you to complete complex customer segmentation jobs in real time, crunching billions of data points into tailored, useable customer profiles based on data such as:
- Geolocation
- Customer behaviour
- Customer data (age, sex, marital status, etc.)
- Previous interactions with your brand
- Similarities with other existing customers
These AI-supported profiles are the basis of a lot of your other digital marketing efforts, so getting this done first is essential.
Personalise your campaigns
Ultra personal campaigns are the in thing.
Nobody wants to receive bland and generic marketing messages; the difference between ‘Hi there,’ and ‘Hi Martin’ is astronomical – if something speaks directly to us, we naturally feel more important and engaged.
AI allows you to create these ultra personal experiences for your audience as a result of the aforementioned advanced profiling.
This means that you can create a variety of tailored campaigns that are segmented and optimised by AI. Everyone will receive comms addressing their specific pain point(s), helping potential customers see that you understand them and know exactly how to help.
Blanket campaigns often get ignored, so personalisation is key. AI allows you to segment your audience extremely accurately, meaning that your messaging can refer to previous purchases, preferences and more. This can also be applied across social media and other marketing channels, meaning that your messaging remains consistent throughout.
Predictive marketing
Imagine if you could see the future. AI can help you do this…sort of.
While AI can’t (yet) tell you which lottery numbers to choose, what it can do is help you to determine the most appropriate marketing strategy for specific scenarios.
It does this by analysing data (of course) and assessing spending habits in order to predict:
- What your customers want to purchase
- When they are likely to purchase said thing
This allows you to ensure that your marketing campaign is both fully customised and goes out at the exact right time, hitting your audience at the precise moment when they’re most likely considering a purchase.
Predictive marketing isn’t a new concept, but AI allows you to get results in real time rather than taking weeks, not bad!
AI powered chatbots
Some people prefer talking to robots rather than other humans, it’s often quicker and easier, so offering them the option to do so is important.
Chatbots have come a long way since their conception, implementing AI to help guide your users to the answers they’re after (with remarkable accuracy). This means that any problems that your users/visitors may be having can be solved almost immediately, bolstering customer loyalty and saving your support team hours.
It’s a win-win, as if the chatbot cannot answer the question, it can deftly pass the user on to a member of your team, who will have complete access to the chat history and can seek a solution then and there.
Chatbots can seamlessly integrate into most CRMs, and there are loads of different options for you to choose from, varying from easy to use (for those who don’t want to spend hours programming their bots) to ones that can be customised down to the finest details.
If your digital marketing campaign is driving more traffic to your website, then a chatbot is the perfect way to ensure that users have the best possible experience while they’re visiting.
Dynamic pricing
In some industries, it’s appropriate to give your services/products a changeable price.
Take Uber, for example, who use AI algorithms to adjust their prices on the fly depending on usage, demand, types of customers and more.
This works great if your product/service is time dependent or changes based on customer circumstance. AI allows you to set the perfect prices for the circumstances, be that the time of day, amount of stock, availability of parts, et cetera.
Social listening tools
Knowing what people are talking about online is a very powerful thing. Social listening tools allow you to follow the online conversation, both about your brand and your wider industry.
You can take this information and use it to form new products, services, campaigns and more.
Not only this, but social listening tools will help you pre-empt any PR disasters before they become an issue. AI can:
- Spot brand mentions (good and bad), allowing you to keep on top of things
- Analyse text and tone of voice (to judge opinion)
- Recognise key themes
- Spot where your brand logo is featured
This ensures that there are no surprises, and that you know exactly what people are saying about your business as and when it happens, allowing you to respond promptly and appropriately, or simply join in the conversation and make a good impression, building brand loyalty!