AI in Marketing #2: How to get to know your customers – before your competitors move in and steal them
This is the second in a series of blogs exploring how AI in marketing is transforming the roles of marketing practitioners everywhere. The first is here, but don’t worry, you don’t need to read them in order!
In each article, we select an AI capability, examine its pros and cons, and, crucially, consider how it frees up marketers to undertake more strategic tasks.
We fundamentally believe that AI is here to help marketers, not to replace them. We all want to do better and more fulfilling jobs, and AI helps.
AI in marketing, what’s the capability?
Marketing teams today report spending between 14.5 and 20 hours a week – between a third and half of their typical working week – managing and collecting customer data. This is as classic an AI task as you could imagine.
And that’s especially true if you’re dealing with Big Data. Classically, there are two types of data: structured and unstructured.
Structured data is more system-oriented: The contents of our CRM. Historical purchasing records. Google Analytics. Or any other reports that we’ve exported as a .csv and used our Excel skills to interrogate.
Let’s face it, most of us would acknowledge we’re not getting the most out of our structured data.
If that’s the case, what chance do we have with unstructured data?
Unstructured data is stuff like emails, webchat records, social media posts, reviews and anything sentiment-related.
AI can munch through datasets that would take us months to interrogate. But even if it was used to handle just the manual data crunching we’re all spending hours or days a week on – and handling it in seconds – it has the scope to be transformational.
So how can AI help us get to know our customers better?
The most famous example – so common it’s practically a shared life experience now – is Amazon’s recommendation engine.
We know that 35% of Amazon’s revenue comes from targeted recommendations from its AI. And we know the phrases well:
- You may also like
- Your browsing history
- Recommended for you
- Frequently repurchased
- Frequently bought together
- Customers who bought this item also bought
Very simple analyses of vast datasets, resulting in billions of incremental revenue.
Where’s the danger?
Simply put, techniques suitable for fast, impersonal, high-volume, low-margin retail sales may not perform as well for higher-value B2C purchases and for the vast majority of B2B transactions.
If we’re spending meaningful money as consumers, or making strategic supplier partners decisions for business, we don’t want to be thought of as just another number. Another statistic. Another upsell opportunity.
We have algorithms on one side generating content, and AI agents on the other, trying to sell us things.
At a recent B2B marketing event, we were discussing whether and when we’d end up in a situation where AI procurement will be buying from AI sales agents, and the best AI sales “person” gets the deal.
The short answer was: “We’re here already”.
Does that sound a bit depressing to you?
If you don’t want to live in that world, then you’d better start figuring out ways to get your personality across and to create real-world experiences for customers and colleagues.
What’s the opportunity?
Human nature is predictable. Just as we rebelled against our parents, so our children will rebel against us. What’s trendy today will be passe tomorrow.
We can use this to our advantage. Zig when others zag.
In retail and wholesale environments, we’re seeing an increase in “traditional” Point of Sale displays, as the outlet looks to promote specific products and offers.
Eye-catching branding and photography are still powerful, and they’re increasingly being combined with Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality to create hybrid physical/digital experiences.
In the food and beverage industry, old-fashioned tent cards on tables promote new offerings and discounts, directing people via QR code to view a microsite or download an app. The real world pushes us to the virtual one.
Post-lockdown, events are coming back strongly in both B2C and B2B sectors. Why? We’re all craving tangible, actual, human experiences.
They’re also a great way to do business, and always have been. The market stall is millennia old.
Today, we need to look the part. A stand that stands out. Our team in branded clothes, increasing brand loyalty. Branded merchandise that people want to keep and use, keeping your name at the forefront of their minds. Collateral displays that catch the eye.
The machines are mainly friendly. Yet they cannot understand that emotion. AI and AI agents are brilliant for certain tasks, and we happily utilise them every day. But we as marketers want more.
> Let’s move from content to conversations.
> From engagement to experiences.
> From automation to human interaction.
If you’d like to explore all these things and more, we’d love to welcome you to our webinar on 5th November where you can chat to our panel and share your thoughts with your peers.