Artificial Intelligence (AI) can seem intimidating and creepy when it comes to collecting, reading and analyzing large amounts of information. As marketers, however, we see massive amounts of data being generated from our promotional initiatives. With all this data, it becomes difficult to sift through the noise and find meaningful insights that will allow us to better connect with our customers. On the other hand, consumers today also have a wide array of information at their fingertips to help them make purchasing decisions. The ultimate question becomes: what do my customers care about and what is the source of their information that prompts them to make their purchasing decision? The emergence of AI has the promise to allow us to better understand our customers and build a stronger relationship with them. Here, I will outline just two ways in which AI will help marketers:
1. Personalized Website Experience
When a customer browses your company’s website, this information is hopefully being tracked by an analytics program. For a marketer, to go through and understand how a consumer went through the various pages on a company’s website and made a purchase is difficult – especially if the website is getting hundreds of thousands of website visitors a month. AI will allow you to implement algorithms that takes past experiences of visitors on your website and help cater each new visitor to your website with content that is relevant to them. For example, when somebody reads an online article from The Wall Street Journal or CNN, an AI based algorithm recommends articles based off what that person has read in the past and current articles generating high interest. Another example is Pandora and their recommended song playlist. Based on what a person listens to, and what others are listening to, AI will make a recommendation in seconds. It would take us a long time to figure this out – something that AI algorithms can do in seconds. Overall, it will increase customer engagement on your website as they are recommended articles and pages that are of interest to them.
2. Curating Specific Email Content
AI can also help improve email engagement. Based on customer profiles and how individuals in the past have engaged with specific parts of your email, AI can better understand and recommend different pieces of content that are relevant to your customers. This will allow us to move away from broad statements and move toward a targeted email based on customer segmentation. It will enable us to understand which pieces of email content are working and which are not. Based off engagement rates, we will be able to better understand which pieces are relevant, and continue to build content around that to continue the higher engagement, all while stopping the delivery of low engagement content.
Although AI is not yet capable of writing its own content, it will allow us to better understand what types of content generate the highest traction. We should not be afraid of AI, nor should we run away from it. AI will help us sift through massive amounts of data to discover insights and help improve customer engagement and satisfaction.