Marketing is truly at the forefront of industries that benefit the most from artificial intelligence, also known as AI. AI analyzes the behavior, preferences, feedback, and characteristics of consumers to predict their behavior. As an end result of the analysis of that data, it gives marketers logically backed recommendations to create unique and personalized experiences for their consumers, increasing engagement and the high touchpoints that consumers crave. What once was a technology that only extremely large companies had access to, AI (even in its most basic forms) is available to businesses of all sizes and is almost necessary to create personalized marketing strategies.
This past weekend in a Social Media Marketing class, we watched a video which showed how Fanatics uses Salesforce’s Einstein AI to deliver the right promotion via the best channel at the best time for each consumer. While one customer, emailing them on Monday morning at 9 am would be the best way to position a promotion, another might be more likely to buy through a Facebook Ad at 12:00 am on a Wednesday night. AI can extend past ad targeting, and aids in developing personalized messaging, product recommendations, and dynamic website content for an individual consumer.
Nowadays, there’s hardly any guessing work when it comes to marketing, as AI helps marketers make decisions that are backed by data and predicted by a (supposedly) reliable data source. However, this is not to say that AI can replace the value of marketers. Marketers still continue to provide problem-solving, campaign strategy, messaging, voice, and unique value propositions… all things that cannot be solved by AI (just yet). I look forward to seeing how AI continues to advance, especially as consumers expect more personalization throughout the buyer journey as well as how accessible new AI technology will be to smaller players within marketing.
