AI Transforming The Digital Marketing Landscape
Business and consumer segments have undergone a massive shift in 2020. Artificial Intelligence has become the forefront of personal and professional lives - from the minute an individual wakes up to when they go to bed (and even while dreaming!), AI can’t be ignored - it’s everywhere.
Smartphones and devices, chatbots on websites and applications, and even self-driving cars; there’s no shortage in the way businesses are utilizing AI in innovative ways to keep their consumers engaged.
Let’s start at the beginning - what is AI, and how is it connected to brands?
Artificial Intelligence is using and programming machines to respond innovatively and creatively to customer requirements. Earlier, tasks were performed manually, but as businesses have evolved, intelligent devices and applications have replaced human interaction to save time, resources, and costs.
Companies have begun to adopt measures in their marketing strategies to enhance overall customer experiences, increase brand outreach and awareness, manage data better, and close deals. AI provides businesses and brands with a competitive edge in various aspects such as:
AI uses algorithms to predict and analyze information about a business’s target audience. It helps a company understand a consumer’s purchasing patterns, behavior, and search requirements to create a customer persona. By creating customer personas, businesses get a fair idea of zeroing in on the target group for their sales.
Chatbots augmented and mixed reality, interactive shopping experiences, enhanced product recommendations, and email marketing enable improving the overall customer experience. Today, customers want immediate responses to grievances and reduced sales journeys; and businesses and brands facilitating these interactions through AI are more likely to succeed.
Reducing redundant and repetitive tasks is one way to increase productivity; another is using social media optimally. All these functions today are carried out by AI, thereby reducing manual time and associated costs.
By helping businesses and brands analyze data better, AI allows companies to make efficient decisions, ultimately contributing to increased ROI. Using AI in marketing strategies or sales strategies, machine intelligence can drive results more optimally than manual labor.
Transforming The Digital Marketing Landscape In 2021
It’s now gradually becoming ‘normal’ to plug AI into every decision and strategy undertaken by a business. Be it personalizing content, enhancing page ranks, improving social media, or customer interactions, AI has proven to make life easier for businesses.
Some common AI strategies deployed by brands that are here to transform the 2021 digital marketing landscape are:
Voice Messaging And Recognition
Have you wondered how advertisements show up based on topics of conversation you’ve been having out loud? AI can’t read your mind (yet!), but it sure does know how to pick up on keywords when speaking. Most smart devices are usually voice-enabled, which allows them to listen to keywords and throw targeted messaging and ads at customers.
For example, if someone speaks about eating burgers for lunch, they’re most likely to be targeted with ads of food delivery aggregators and food platforms that sell burgers. Much like typed-in keyword optimization, voice recognition and voice search have become the new SEO.
Chatbots - Your Friendly Internet Butlers
Chatbots have taken over the internet in an exciting way. From answering queries to providing customer support, the largest and smallest companies have in-built chatbots in their web platforms and mobile applications. Companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google, Instagram, and Netflix all use chatbots to answer thousands of queries and support related requirements that flood in every hour. It’s now become difficult to distinguish a chatbot from human support, and more consumers have become accustomed to getting their queries resolved using AI.
Of course, there’s always some human support available if the chatbot fails to answer a question satisfactorily, but that’s typically in 1 out of 10 cases.
AR and VR is Now Reality
Pokemon Go was one of the first AR games to take the world by storm. Now, with a strong digital shift in the world in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, AR and VR have become the new way of interacting with others.
From Instagram filters that allow you to distort your face and background to startups that let you see how furniture or wall paint would look like in your home before you purchase it, or even let you try on a pair of glasses virtually before you are buying them, brands are becoming increasingly creative with AR and VR in engaging customers more than ever.
The Future is Now
In a world where attention has become extremely scarce, businesses need to develop exciting ways to pique a consumer’s interest. AI has become the new trend in the digital marketing landscape where businesses are going to improve customer experiences. We help businesses create unique digital experiences through innovation and focused outreach. With a stronghold in the digital marketing landscape, our team is excited to deploy strategies across verticals.
The author is Rikki Aggarwal, Co-Founder, Chief Business & Operating Officer of Blink Digital
