AI’s transformative power in marketing
Marketing is one of the areas of business operations where artificial intelligence (AI) is predicted to continue driving enormous change. If you’re a marketer and you haven’t started to utilize some level of AI, you may be missing out on the benefits of this transformational technology.
Marketing has a lot to gain from AI. Marketing’s core activities include understanding customer or donor needs, matching them to products, programs and services, and persuading people to buy or donate—capabilities that AI can dramatically enhance.
AI is the defining technology of our time and developers are at the forefront of this transformation. With the right tools, we can empower developers and our shared customers or donors to shape the future and leave their mark on the world. We are just starting to see the incredible impact that AI is having across sectors and in our daily lives.
Brent Chaters, Managing Director of Marketing Transformation with Accenture Song, recently joined a Not-For-Profit Council meeting and spoke to the group about what he calls “the big theme of everything and everywhere.”
“Barely any industry or platform will be left untouched,” Brent said. “From AI generating text, images, sound, video, and code. It’s just getting started.”
AI within marketing refers to the use of technologies such as machine learning, deep learning, and natural language processing to solve marketing challenges and improve personalization. Early AI adopters with marketing objectives often focus on creating new products and services, improving existing products and services, and enhancing relationships with customers or donors.
AI marketing tools use customer or donor data to create automated decisions and develop marketing strategies that anticipate their next action. AI algorithms can analyze vast amounts of data and provide insights into buying or giving patterns, helping organizations personalize their marketing campaigns and increase conversions. AI powered tools such as chatbots, predictive analytics, and direct response marketing can streamline processes, gather valuable insights, increase audience reach or engagement, and recommend the next best actions. Brent says, “some applications of generative AI will automate existing human tasks at unimaginable speed and scale.” This will make teams more efficient and effective.
Many tools with AI features already exist and we use them as marketers without even thinking about it. These include social and search engine advertising solutions, email marketing platforms, ecommerce solutions, and tools designed to assist with content creation. Brent encouraged the Not-For-Profit Council to “rethink how we use technology to connect content and experiences. AI brings us a new enterprise paradigm.”
AI can help us carry out tasks such as identifying where to place advertising in order to maximize efficiency or determine how to personalize an email to increase the likelihood of receiving a response. It gets better at these tasks as it is exposed to more data. “Generative AI,” as Brent explained, “is a type of AI that focuses on new data or content creation.” Generative AI is only one brand of content AI.
Many marketers today use AI to handle limited tasks such as digital advertising placement or assist with bespoke tasks like enhancing the accuracy of data predictions. Marketing teams may also use AI along the customer or donor journey to nurture and deepen the relationship, or to target people with advertising when they are researching a product or program, to help guide their search. With the help of AI, brands can connect with consumers whose values and online behaviours are in line with their appeal.
For organizations with limited AI experience, a good way to begin is to build or buy simple rule-based applications. Rules-based systems are great for repetitive processes, such as email routing using triggers and basic search. Many organizations are taking a phased approach starting with stand-alone task automation applications such as one that guides 1-800 call center representatives who engage with inquiries from customers or donors.
Once organizations acquire basic AI skills and a wealth of customer or donor data, they are moving from task automation to machine learning. However, while there are many tools available, often there is no coordinated company-wide AI strategy, so large or integrated projects are not implemented frequently. Just as importantly, many marketing teams are lagging when it comes to embracing a data-led and AI-focused culture, which includes investing in resources to develop new competencies and upskill.
Brent Chaters’ final piece of advice to the Council, was to encourage organizations to understand the data used to create these models and develop data strategies today since that is what differentiates customer or donor experiences. “You need to train your models on your data and own those models exclusively,” said Brent. “They will be an important part of organizations’ IP and experience.”
The integration of AI and marketing holds immense potential for organizations to thrive in the digital era. However, the successful realization of AI's benefits within your own organization relies heavily on cultivating a culture of innovation and adopting a strategic approach to integrating AI into marketing practices. Ignoring the transformative power of AI in marketing means overlooking one of the most thrilling technological disruptors of our time.
