All brands and marketers are thinking of new ways to find and attract their ideal audience. But in a fast-paced and ever-evolving digital marketing landscape, it’s getting difficult to reach the ‘right’ people and get the desired results.
From the many marketing methods, AI or Artificial intelligence, is already transforming the face of marketing. From optimizing and speeding up different tasks, to improving customer experiences and driving conversions, AI has been very useful.
Artificial intelligence marketing (AI Marketing) is a method of leveraging customer data and AI concepts like machine learning to anticipate the customer’s next move, and improve the customer journey. Let’s now look at a few takeaways fromAI:
1. It can hyper-personalize the experience by analyzing profiles
2. It speeds up certain product types and formats of content
3. AI powered software can decide what type of content to create and distribute at a given time
4. It can predict customer behavior and identify valuable leads
In the future, the AI market is expected to be worth $36.8 billion by 2025;and this autonomous branch of digital technology will continue to evolve, especially in the age of the emerging metaverse. With vehicle technologies, fitness devices,voice assistants and smartphones, AI has already enhanced the daily lives of consumers. If utilized tactically, AI technology has the potential to help brands connect with their audience on a deeper level, resulting in accelerated business growth.
Now let’s look at some innovative and inspiring uses of AI in digital marketing.
Thriving beauty products’ brand Sephora has used chatbot creatively to offer its users the most customized and instructive customer experience possible. After conducting research, the brand realized that many customersfound Sephora's broad selection of items overpowering, and had to browse through a host of pages to find something suitable in their desired categories.
In light of this, Sephora sent off intelligent testsdriven by chatbots to assist its customersthrough the shopping system, and give them custom-made tips in responses to their requirements and reactions. As a result of this initiative, Sephora now offers a personal chatbot-controlled shopping administration through Facebook Messenger.
Netflix, the world’s leading content streaming service, needs little introduction. However, not many people know that a great deal of its unstoppable success is a result of cutting-edge AI.
As we know, user experience (UX) is paramount to the ongoing success of any business, regardless of the industry. When a customer has a positive experience with a brand they're likely to share it with peers online.
To enhance its overall UX and cater to the individual user, Netflix uses AI-driven machine learning technology to provide personalized content recommendations based on a user’s preferences and past viewing. Moreover, Netflix uses an AI development to automatically optimize streaming quality and avoid any buffering issues.
Over 80% of the shows people watch on Netflix are based on the personal recommendations, a testament to the power of AI in an age where people demand more value than ever from the brands they invest in.
About 60 million grown-ups use voice search atleast once a day. Similarly, 72% of Americans own a smart speaker (like Siri or Alexa) of some variety. Voice innovation is on the ascent, and people who embrace its prospects experience extraordinary benefits.
Starbucks is no exception.To offer its audience an additional layer of consumer value, the coffee colossus integrated its most subscribed apps, with Amazon’s Alexa technology. In doing so, its customers now use their own ‘My Starbucks Barista’ service to place and modify orders, as well as confirm a pickup location for maximum convenience – undoubtedly a seamless blend of voice and chatbot innovation in action.
Because of the success of its 'My Starbucks Barista' application, the brand has widened its AI advancements by adding AI-controlled Mastrena II coffee creators (machines that basically supplement the pre-requesting abilities of the application) to large number of its outlets, to offer a more reliable and smooth espresso making experience to its customers.
Retail giant Alibaba opened a physical “FashionAI” store in Hong Kong to streamline the fashion retail experience through Artificial Intelligence. Alibaba equipped its stores with intelligent garment tags that detect when the item is touched, and smart mirrors that display clothing information suggest coordinating items. Alibaba also has plans to integrate the brick-and-mortar store with a virtual wardrobe app that will allow customers to see the outfits they tried on in the store.
Alibaba’s use of technology is a response to the consumers’ shifting expectations. According to a National Retail Federation survey, 80% of shoppers say retail technologies and innovations have enhanced their online buying experience, while 66% say the same about brick-and-mortar retail.
When the consumer’s needs are top of mind, and incorporated creatively, AI-aided marketing can offer incredible rewards in growth, evolution andsustainable success of a brand, in an increasingly competitive digital landscape.
Thus, for brands to enjoy success tomorrow, they need to incorporate AI technologies and engage the consumer with creative marketing from today itself. It’s not just about future thinking, it’s imperative for survival in the current times too.