AI And The Future Of Marketing…10 Predictions

Artificial Intelligence is a hot buzzword in the technology world right now. Is AI the future of marketing? How can marketers use AI? Will AI replace marketers altogether? Here are my answers and ten predictions for the future of AI and marketing.

1. Augmented Reality And Virtual Reality Will Become Prominent

In a video by Neil Patel, Patel predicts that VR and AR are going to change the marketing game before AI does. For example, SEO is going to change AR.

According to Hubspot, “at last count, 71% of U.S. internet usage took place on mobile (Hubspot.com).” Also, a study conducted by Flurry Insights found that people spend 92% of their time on apps. Therefore, Spotlight searches to toggle through apps has become more prominent.

Apps with GPS capabilities like Google maps are geographical search engines. Single business listings on Google maps contain vast amounts of information about companies. Also, things like social search, voice search, augmented reality and messaging apps are becoming more prominent and will play a role in SEO going forward.

Patel also predicts that AR will allow people to “try” on clothes and things from the comfort of their own home.

These things will have a more immediate impact on marketing than AI.

2. AI and the Internet Of Things Will Become Prominent.

To me, the answer to the question of what the future holds for AI and marketing lies at the intersection of AI and the internet of things. Patel uses smart refrigerators as an example for his predictions.

According to Patel, the AI component of the refrigerator will be able to tell us when we are low on a particular kind of food (he uses almond milk as an example) and then ask if we would like to purchase more. He predicts that marketers will be able to use this technology by sending an ad to the smart refrigerator that asks if the customer would like to try a different brand of almond milk for a discounted price.

I predict that users will ultimately have one interface that they will be able to access that will show them every device that they have on the internet. This account the best prices and value that they can receive on various products. For example, groceries, gas, Wifi, etc.

3. AI Will Enhance Digital Advertising

According to statista.com, Google controls 44% of global ad spend and Facebook controls 18%. Google and Facebook have an obvious duopoly on the ad market. Companies typically run their ad campaigns either through an in-house marketing team or an outside agency.

However, according to Content Marketing Institute, AI could help companies locate advertising channels that their competition is not using, thus eliminating the need for an agency or in-house team to run the campaigns.

AI and machine learning algorithms will help marketers better target their campaigns as well as write better copy and in some cases, write copy for marketers.

Content Marketing Institute also predicts that AI will also improve email ad campaigns by sending emails based on things like previous website interactions, previously read content, whish list, etc.

I predict that marketers will use AI in this way to send highly targeted emails to customers only after they have behaved in a way that is congruent with the product or service that the marketer is selling.

For example, customers may sign up for a company’s weekly newsletter, but other than that weekly email, the customer will only receive an email if they have added one of the company’s item’s to their wishlist or viewed similar content.

4. AI Will Enhance Data Compilation And Manipulation

It is no secret that we marketers love statistics, and need them to perform our jobs effectively. AI will automate the tasks of manually entering data such as social media statistics.

For example, we will be able to do things such as telling a program to pull data on the number of people who have purchased Lays Potato chips as opposed to Pringles in the past year.

5. Chat Bots Will Become More Intelligent

Currently, chatbots send pre-written statements in response to a user typing something into a chatbox.

In the future, chatbots will be able to answer questions and hold conversations like an actual human.

6. AI Will Personalize Websites And Content In General

According to Content Marketing Institute, AI will enable websites to display the best fitting content relative to the user. For example, sites will be able to make offers or send very relevant push notifications to visitors based on that particular visitor’s demographics, location, interaction with the website, etc.

Evergage reports that “98% of marketers believe that personalization has at least some impact on advancing customer relationships (Evergage.com).”

AI used for this purpose can help increase conversion rates.

I believe that AI is going to be used similarly to analyze content within specific niches and make suggestions to writers on what content to include in their writing.

Companies such as Pandora are already using AI to customize their content. Customization will undoubtedly play a huge role in the future of advertising.

7. AI Will Be Able To Create Content

Gartner.com predicted that by 2018 20% of content would be written by machines (Gartner). Content Marketing Institute reports that machines can currently create content with “simple rule sets and formats such as:

Profit and loss summaries
Quarterly business reports
Hotel descriptions
Real-time stock insights
Sports game recaps (CMI.com).”

AI can realistically generate simple content that can follow simple rule sets like email content or social media content.

8. AI Will Personalize Customer Engagement

I predict that AI will allow marketers to tailor ads to individual customers’ wants/needs based on their interaction with the marketer’s website, content, wish list, shopping cart, similar products that the customer has bought, etc.

AI and machine-learning algorithms already can use this data to analyze customer behavioral patterns. Companies like Crimson Hexagon use AI to help companies like GM, Samsung, Fender, and others with social listening and customer segmentation.

For example, Crimson Hexagon analyzed social media content and website visits, and demographical information for Fender to help them capture more female buyers.

Salesforce reports that 61% of marketers believe that AI will have a “substantial or transformational impact on hyper-personalization of content over the next five years (Salesforce.com).”

I believe ads will be more interactive in the future. Marketers who use interactive content such as quizzes already receive much higher engagement than those who don’t.

If customers receive personalized video ads or ads with copy that is relevant to the content that they have viewed or the products that they have previously bought, those ads will receive much higher engagement.

9. AI Will Make Marketers More Efficient

Salesforce explains how marketers are already using AI to become more efficient by allocating their time more effectively and automating tasks such as segmenting customers.

Salesforce also makes the point that if a CRM system is used to automate these tasks for marketers, it allows marketers to access everything that they need to in one place. A CRM system that automates tasks for marketers could be an extremely useful method given all of the data that CRM systems already store.

Also, the data that could be imported from other sources, such as interactions with websites, shopping carts, geo-location, etc. could provide extremely effective insights for marketers. Information such as this could also provide buyer personas and pain points for salesmen.

10. AI Will Improve Retail

Amazon Go technology, facial recognition, and the intersection of IoT and AI will affect brand awareness, positioning, and brand loyalty.

Brands currently do things such as position their products at eye level in grocery stores, use subliminal advertising to win over the position in their audiences’ minds, and advertise to mothers to influence the brand loyalty of their children.

With AI and IoT, marketers will be able to advertise to customers on their refrigerators (as mentioned above) instead of vying for optimal position in the grocery store and will be able to easily affect brand loyalty with offers of discounted or free products.

Also, with VR customers will be able to try on clothes before buying them online.

Also, facial recognition and Amazon Go will provide insights into consumer behavior that has not previously been available. For example, stores will be able to analyze how frequently people pick up a product then put it down, what this customer looked like, etc.

Facial recognition will also help retailers measure their ad spend relative to store visits. As Content Marketing Institute says, facial recognition allows you to “track your offline ROI of your online campaigns (CMI).”

Facial recognition will be huge for retailers as there is currently a gap between their online marketing and offline marketing.

Conclusion:

Do I think that AI will replace marketers? No, there will always be a need for a human to operate whatever platforms use AI, and only a human can understand human behavior.

Also, historically speaking, every time there has been an advancement in technology, the loss of jobs in one sector has been absorbed by another. For example, agricultural jobs decreased in 1850, but manufacturing jobs skyrocketed during the industrial revolution.

Humans will need to decide how to use the AI capabilities to enhance marketing efforts. In essence, AI will become somewhat of a “workhorse” for marketing efforts, but humans will still have to interpret the data that AI provides for them.

How will humans use AI for marketing purposes? Time will tell, but AI will only enhance marketing efforts.