AI, Machine Learning and Marketing: Breaking Down the Barriers to Relevance at Scale
Relevance at scale has been the holy grail of marketing for more than two decades. Considered the next level in personalized or one-to-one consumer marketing, the industry has steadily moved towards this objective, yet attainment has always remained elusive. But thanks to advances in AI and machine learning, marketers are closer than ever to achieving one of the industries more sought after goals.
Tradition
Certain industries have traditionally taken a less innovative (i.e. creative) approach to their marketing strategies. Companies in the HR, finance and supply chain management sectors are most likely to take a process-driven approach to their products and services. In many cases, this could be bypassing the Marketing department all together.
According to an Accenture study of Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs), 78 percent acknowledge that marketing will fundamentally change in the next five years. However, if marketing hasn't traditionally played a significant part in your business, it's that much more difficult to recognize the kind of forward-thinking opportunities and technologies that are key to your business achieving relevance at scale.
Focus and Mindset
Marketing tends to attract the type of person who dreams up big outside the box ideas. Which is important, because without these ideas marketing content would be a lot less interesting and many businesses would be reaching far fewer consumers (i.e. generating less revenue). However, with so much emphasis placed on original ideas, efficiency and marketing spend effectiveness are often secondary concerns for the average marketing team.
By the Numbers
Across industries, marketing budgets are tightening. CMOs are expected to produce more engaging real-time content for less money, across the digital spectrum. Likewise, as consumers have come to expect a highly consistent experience, regardless of the digital format, optimized marketing has never been more important.
In the Accenture study, 21 percent and 20 percent of respondents, respectively, cited a lack of technology or efficient business processes as the main reason for not improving their marketing operations. Similarly, an additional 17 percent said that a lack of integration with other business functions was a primary barrier to better marketing.
The Solution(s)
Automation, specifically intelligent automation, can resolve many of the barriers to entry that the marketing industry currently experiences. Companies like WorkFusion, specialize in this type of automation technology and can help marketers automate everything from desktop processes to exception handling and complex workflows.
Together, these applications, and more, can significantly improve the efficiency of business processes and effectively integrate even enterprise level operations. Best of all, intelligent automation systems are designed to continuously learn using both historical and real-time information so there's always room for improvement.
Taking Marketing to the Next Level
AI and machine learning are already changing how consumers interact with brands and their products and services. Big Data obtained from social media, consumer spending habits and search activity can now be inputted into sophisticated machine learning algorithms that can reveal key insights into the personal preferences of each customer. The days of email blasting and blanket advertising are numbered, as savvy marketers use these technologies to move ever closer to relevance at scale.
Facial recognition software can even allow marketers tap into the emotional component of consumer spending, helping them to decipher what consumers do or do not respond to a deeper level. Consumer responses to certain colors or tone of voice tone, similarly help to to craft instantaneous highly relevant marketing content, media targeting and a better real-time shopping experiences.
With more companies using AI and machine learning to improve business processes and create truly individualized customer experiences, the barriers to relevance at scale begin to break down. As technology and consumer interaction move closer to one another, so too must the marketing industry if it wants to achieve its most ambitious goal to date.
