AI Marketing Use Cases and What We Can Learn From Them

You may not realize this, but AI is all around us.

Judy Carline Woodruff, US Broadcast Journalist

There is no denying this anymore. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are just a part of some futuristic movies. Today, AI has popped straight out of these movies and books and is part of our daily life; it is no more fiction. The reality is that most of our lives are already being enhanced by AI in some form or the other, sometimes without even our knowledge.

They are there, sometimes secretly working behind the scenes, ensuring our work gets completed automatically and, more importantly, gets completed error-free, well, mostly. Today, from some of the most significant industrial automation to the most common smartphones, AI is everywhere.

Like all other technologies, AI in marketing too is not a new concept anymore. Artificial intelligence and marketing solutions enjoy a special kind of love with most marketers these days. From building an effective AI marketing strategy to enhancing a customer’s journey with the brand to everything else in between, AI-driven marketing is helping businesses improve their business. What’s more, with AI in sales and marketing, marketers today enjoy more time to focus on critical and strategic planning.

Before we move any further, let us understand what is AI and what is AI marketing?

Artificial Intelligence Defined

In simple words, Artificial intelligence refers to any action performed by machines that are programmed to think, learn, problem-solve and act like humans. (Source: www.investopedia.com).

What is AI Marketing Then?

Now that we know what AI is, AI marketing can be defined as the use of AI marketing technology in marketing to speed marketing efforts up. These AI marketing platforms help marketers collect and analyze customer data to predict economic trends and understand consumer behavior. Basis this understanding, marketers can channel the resources and marketing efforts for the best business results.

Here are some examples and use cases of AI-based marketing adopted by marketers across the globe.

AI in Marketing Examples

• Website Designing: AI website designing tools are perhaps the simplest examples of AI and marketing working together. What used to be a complex process that required a great degree of expertise to design a good website is today being created easily by the machine, thanks to these AI marketing automation solutions. All one needs to do for making their website today is just add all the content they require onto these tools, and these tools automatically build the website for you using AI. While many designing tools are up and running today, some commonly used names include The Grid, Vid ADI, and Firedrop.

• Content Creation and Curation: Machines are growing smarter by the day. Today, various tools are used by marketers that even help them with content creation. Tools like Wordsmith and Quill help generate automated content using blank templates and the necessary data and keywords. This helps generate unique and standardized content fast and helps automate the most relevant content without the fear of missing out. So good is the output that it is practically impossible to decipher whether the content is machine-generated or by humans. Another great use of AI in marketing has been the ability of marketers to analyze the consumer’s behavior and, basis that, share curated content and recommendations with them. This helps to wow the customer, but it also allows brands to feed the users and engage with the brand for as long as possible. Today, brands like Netflix, Hotstar, Amazon, and many others like them are using tools like IBM Watson to ensure they are constantly engaging their customers, thus helping them retain them.

• Recommendation and Forecasting Engines: Today’s world is very competitive. If you are unable to keep your customer engaged, someone else will. Using the consumer data gathered from the past engagements, and recommendation engine tools like Klevu and Smarthint, companies can today predict what the users are likely to like and use the data to their advantage to forecast the future and plan and budget accordingly. For modern marketers, data is the king, and all the artificial intelligence marketing solutions available in the market are helping them today take measured steps backed by data inferences drawn accurately by the machines.

• Voice, the Game-Changer: With the advancement of technology, consumer lifestyle is advancing. Today, consumers are switching to smart homes that are filled with voice-operated gadgets. Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa are household names these days, where the consumer can search for anything, anything simply using Voice. What’s more, AI is even helping search engines to get smarter. For example, Google’s RankBrain helps Google interpret and generate the most relevant results for every customer search. With voice gaining simplifying the user experience, why should marketers stay behind? Marketers worldwide are capitalizing on the Voice boom by creating a newer form of engagement marketing for consumers, Voice ads. Realizing that traditional ways of marketing like banners and print ads are no longer working for them, they are sending out customized AI-driven voice ads that consumers find more engaging and deliver better brands.

• Hyper-Focused Marketing: Be it using chatbots to automate communication with customers on various social platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp Messenger, engage customers using image recognition and manipulation filters like in TikTok or Snapchat, or engage with customers by showcasing advertisements that are most relevant to consumers based on their search history, AI is definitely helping marketers with Hyper-focused marketing. Another great artificial intelligence marketing example is the automated bidding system used by advertisers and marketers.

AI is Growing

• AI will replace around 33% of data analysts in marketing by 2022.
• AI’s benefits and potential have been recognized by IT companies. They were already spending between $20 and $30 billion on average in 2016. The deployment and research budget accounted for 90% of the total budget.

According to Gartner,

Teams Will Scale Through AI

Marketing teams will be under more pressure to show executive stakeholders the value and ROI of marketing. Teams will use AI technologies to help them achieve these goals, allocate funding to successful initiatives, and provide marketing metrics that show the effectiveness of campaigns.

With the increase in AI-powered tools, many marketers start to worry about their jobs. However, almost every artificial intelligence marketing solution needs the help of humans. AI and marketing are going to be inseparable for a long time to come. Yet, it will only serve as an extension to your capabilities and not as a replacement(At least for now).

Stay tuned for AI in marketing part-2 because there we shall talk about how Nike tapped into common interests using AI-powered augmented reality and how AI-triggered action helps Starbucks create a loyal customer following.

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