There’s a bit of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in everything around us today. As a marketer, you could use AI in a variety of ways, enhancing customer experiences and evaluating consumer behavior. In this article, we talk about:
- Five innovative ideas for AI implementation
- How these handpicked brands used AI for genuine value creation
- Why you can’t afford the transformative potential for AI in marketing
There’s constantly something new happening in Artificial Intelligence. Over the last few years, its acceptance, impact and widespread popularity have revolutionized how businesses look at everyday processes. Between now and 2024, the global AI space will grow at a 26% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR), reaching a staggering USD 71 billion.
It is astonishing how AI is deeply embedded across our daily lives — play music on your Spotify app, and there’s AI to curate a special playlist for you; craving ice cream? Your preferred delivery app will suggest options to order from, and if you back out, it will insist that you proceed with the “sweet deal.” And if it’s a long day at work, you can expect an ecommerce app to offer perfectly tailored product choices for some retail therapy.
For marketers, the possibilities with AI are limitless. By using AI’s ability to sort through customer data and offer more insightful, detailed, and experiential consumer connect methodologies, you can finetune a campaign like never before. AI in marketing is fast-moving beyond data crunching — to become a critical tool for studying consumer behavior, buying sentiment, purchasing preferences, and gauge the “intangible but palpable” mood of the customer.
5 Examples to Consider when Scripting Your AI in Marketing Plan
Here are five companies who put AI in marketing to great use, and significantly improved their productivity and profitability levels.
#1. Footasylum — Ensure the right messaging volume for your target audience
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) can help you rethink how to trigger social media notifications.
Consumers are targeted with social messages from every platform, and your content could get lost in the noise. AI can study social media behavior to understand precisely when the customer is ready to engage with your brand — or scale down communication during low engagement periods.
Recently, UK-based retailer, Footasylum applied AI to segment its audience into targetable profiles. These profiles were then used to create lookalike audiences on social media. The technology even recommended the right moment for ad content sharing, to increase the chances of conversion.
Footasylum was able to garner an incredible Return On Advertiser Spend (ROAS), as its intelligent combination of AI, audience segmentation, and social media unlocked 30-times higher returns than the industry average.
#2. Norwegian Air — Zero in on variables that drive high engagement
Several factors contribute to your customer’s willingness to engage with your brand and purchase products. You need to find out: Are they logging in from home or a work computer? Where are they situated on the marketing funnel? Are they located in your Designated Market Area (DMA)?
Instead of analyzing and assessing these factors manually, you can use AI to auto-evaluate engagement possibilities and even automate messaging.
Norwegian Air, a global airline brand, leveraged this idea to boost ticket bookings. The company’s Q4 2018 campaign started with a clear goal: drive new bookings through the website and raise brand awareness in key markets.
A custom ML model was developed to target users in certain regions, coupled with algorithms that would optimize campaign delivery depending on the consumer’s exposure level to digital advertisements. Norwegian Air managed to exceed its goal, achieving a 170% lower cost-per-booking than expected.
#3. Cox Communications — Personalize the audio track of your advertising campaigns
With AI technology advancing by leaps and bounds, it is now possible to finetune the background audio for commercials, using AI. Marketers typically spend hours or even days in audio production, for ad campaigns to no avail; but with video, your choice of background score and supporting music can make a significant difference in how customers perceive the brand.
AI promises to cut down production time, from days to just a few minutes. The media company, Cox Communications, is currently implementing an exciting pilot in partnership with Spark Foundry.
In this experiment, each new ad unit will use AI to automatically generate creative audio elements. This will help the company rapidly scale across channels, maintaining a careful balance between programmatic and personalization. Through the power of AI, Cox Communications cut down ad production time from 2 to 3 days to less than 10 minutes.
#4. Wowcher — Accelerate social media campaigns via AI-written copy
While the impact of AI on creative tasks is still debatable, innovators are already looking at streamlining copy-writing efforts via technology. AI may not yet be able to create long-form marketing content or ideate in strategic areas.
However, when it comes to short, bite-sized content geared for immediate consumption, AI writers could be the future. You could “teach” an algorithm social media best practices to auto-generate and share copy/content across platforms.
Ecommerce company, Wowcher, ramped up its social media volumes using AI copy-writing technology. A major benefit of the tool was that it studied emoticons as part of regular speech/writing patterns, and the AI engine organically formulated emoji-based social copy that resonated with a lot of users.
As a result, Wowcher witnessed a 31% reduction in cost per lead, as well as a higher Relevance Score.
#5. Nestle — Connect with customers based on hidden behavioral patterns
AI doesn’t just bring benefits in terms of effort and cost reduction. You can also unlock opportunities that would have otherwise been overlooked. AI can scan millions of data sets in a fraction of the time; it can highlight dominant patterns, and marketers can use these behavioral patterns to target their customers in new ways.
Nestle used AI to scan songs and popular media in the public domain to uncover trends around food consumption. A surprising correlation came to light: there were at least 50 instances of ice-cream linked to breakfast. Additional market research revealed that sweet products were proving to be a popular breakfast item in the US.
Led by these insights, Nestle launched its “Breakfast for Dessert” product series, which soon became an industry standard.
The Wonderful “Yellow Brick Road”: Why This Is Just the Beginning for AI in Marketing
These are only some of the instances where AI is making a difference today. Marketers are eager to use the latest cutting-edge tech to reimagine their campaigns, offering customers an idea/product that’s fascinating. This is why you need to research and experiment with AI in marketing, and:
- Use AI to minimize effort or iterative tasks, and realign focus on strategy
- Deep dive into consumer behavior and create a truly compelling campaign
- Analyze, review, and tweak any initiative through AI-powered data management
The sky is the limit with AI in marketing, and as a modern marketer, it’s your job to determine its rightful place in your martech stack.
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This article first appeared in www.martechadvisor.com
Guest Author: Chiradeep BasuMallick is a content marketing professional with 8 Years+ experience in corporate communications, marketing content, brand management, and advertising. Over the course of his tenure, he’s worked on several big-ticket projects, led and trained a variety of teams, and been instrumental in driving delivery quality, timeline adherence, and talent harvesting.
