When speaking about the AI (Artificial Intelligence further) marketing, a lot of people instantly assume that this is something incredibly expensive and complex. However, this trend is quickly becoming an everyday discussion in the digital world, as more and more tools start relying on AI. That being said, one can’t wonder but ask a question – will AI marketing ever become a major thing? To answer this question with greater accuracy, we much first examine all the benefits that such a revolution would bring. With this in mind, here are a few things you need to know about AI marketing and all the changes it can introduce.
A greater number of searches requires more potent analytic tools
According to most recent social media statistics, about 3.5 billion searches are made every day. Needless to say, this is an amazing boost, when compared to just a couple of years back, which is hardly surprising seeing as how the number of websites online and the number of online users grows every day. For the sake of comparison, take into consideration the fact that in 1999, it took Google one month to index about 50 million pages while 13 years later, in 2012, this search engine could do the same in under a minute.
Still, the volume of the internet today and what it was 6 years ago are vastly different, which means that even the above-discussed stellar processing speed may not be enough. This is why it is more than transparent that this is the amount of work that is simply too large in volume for a human or a basic software to handle. This is what urged Google to turn towards the idea of AI and deep-learning in the first place.
Seeing as how this was the situation in the digital world, marketers had to find a way to keep up, which is why they turned towards the implementation of AI into their own tools. These tools, help them process more results in a shorter amount of time, which, in turn, gives them a slight edge in coordinating their own digital marketing responses. After all, in 2018, even OSs heavily rely on virtual assistants, which is more than a clear indicator of the direction that the digital world is currently taking.
Better audience identification
One of the greatest problems people have with AI analytics is the fact that it is ‘too data-driven’. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Think about it for a second, the creators of My Little Pony franchise probably could have never imagined that their brand will become the most popular amongst adult males. In fact, this is probably their main demographic when it comes to the merchandise and convention attendance. However, it is definitely not something that any human marketer would ever assume, expect or even guess.
Needless to say, potentially missing out on your audience, especially if it’s your main audience, can be devastating for a brand, which is why a better audience identification can be crucial to brand’s survival. Moreover, seeing as how AI analysis is not bound by any societal norms or prejudices, it has the ability to use the trend of deep learning and quickly redraws the metrics through which it makes conclusions. In this way, it can be much quicker to adapt to a changed or unexpected situation and in this way give you more consistency in your marketing efforts.
Better customer service
According to numerous surveys, there are some estimates that, by the year 2020, about 85 percent of all customer interactions might be handled without a human agent. That being said, there is a reason behind this and that is simply because AI is simply more effective than human customer service in more ways than one. For instance, AI only needs to be programmed once, which means that you don’t have to keep investing in their professional education. AI doesn’t care about work hours, benefits, pay leaves or sick days. Moreover, AI doesn’t charge more when working on holidays.
On the other hand, perhaps the biggest advantage of AI marketing lies in the fact that it’s always-on and it responds instantly. Keep in mind that the patience of your customer base isn’t unlimited. Therefore, the speed at which the person (agent) on the other end answers their call might play a crucial role when it comes to their satisfaction with your brand as a whole.
Now, to put some people’s minds at ease, the fact that you’re switching to AI customer support doesn’t mean the end of your human collaborations. For instance, highly-skilled IT support will never be fully replaced by AI, seeing as how this would create a loop of a potentially unsolvable problem.
Better at calculating ROI
At the end of the day, the greatest benefit of turning to AI marketing is the fact that you will get a much more reliable way of actively calculating your current marketing’s ROI. For a small business working on a tight budget, this makes all the difference in the world.
You see, in the past, John Wanamaker complained about his inability to know which half of his marketing investments go to waste. Today, with present-day analytic tools such and Big Data, such a thing is possible. Now, add the internet of things (IoT) to the mix and enhance it with the idea of AI marketing and what you get is an incredibly elaborate and precise method of marketing ROI estimation.
In conclusion
A lot of people fear the very idea of AI so much that they completely turn a blind eye to its many benefits. Due to the fact that these AI-enhanced tools will become more present on the market, as well as the fact that they will become more and more sophisticated, they might be able to turn the tide significantly in favor of startups and SMBs. Once the difference between the analytical prowess between major companies and small enterprises becomes a thing of the past, David will finally have a fair fight when facing Goliath.
