Artificial intelligence is a ubiquitous buzzword these days. But what is artificial intelligence, anyway? First, let’s define ‘intelligence’ means in this case: simply put, it’s the ability to learn, reason, plan, problem-solve and adapt. AI, therefore, is a machine that has learned to mimic this behavior.
If your mind just jumped to Skynet, HAL 9000 or Ultron—relax. AI is already among us, making our lives easier. Whenever Google Maps updates your route, or Spotify curates a discovery playlist for you, or Amazon suggests a purchase, that’s AI at work.
AI has powerful implications for digital marketing, including:
- Making better decisions faster. An AI can crunch massive amounts of data, including competitor data, and spit out relevant insights. With predictive analytics, AI can forecast sales, identify opportunities, pinpoint high-value targets and recommend tactics to improve key metrics.
- Segmenting and personalizing data. Cluster your audience into targeted segments quickly and accurately. AI analysis is unclouded by bias—a human might assume mostly young women are buying beauty products, but an AI will tell you who your customers really are. AI can even use this data to automatically personalize marketing content without the need for human intervention.
- Automating repetitive tasks. AI automation can save time and money. Replace your contact form with a chatbot, automatically adjust email timings based on individual customer preference, automate your ad buying with a programmatic solution that maximizes ROI, and much more!
To fully leverage the power of AI, you’ll need to feed it clean, high-quality data—the more, the better. This might mean linking and cleansing datasets from your CRM, marketing campaigns and website. This part can be a pain. It’s also crucial.
The results are more than worth it: strong decision-making support, a deeper understanding of your customers, a more personalized customer experience, and, of course, more time for you to spend on brilliant work instead of busywork.
It can take time and effort to stand up an AI solution that fits your needs. In the meantime, though, you can always read more on what AI can do for you, and why it’s the smart play.
Intelligent, even.
