A.I. is one of the most trending words in today’s digital world. It is used in many advanced technologies of today like machine learning, robotics, computer vision, natural language processing, autonomous cars, etc. One such important application of A.I. is Machine Learning. Machine Learning involves the study and application of algorithms that improve automatically through experience. It creates programs that access data and can learn on their own. Machine Learning is already being used extensively in other fields like medical diagnosis, military applications, space and science, home automation, and for purposes like image processing, classification of objects, learning, etc.
Nowadays, in addition to the above, the Marketing domain is also witnessing an increased use of Machine Learning. It is estimated that more than 80% of marketing companies will invest in advanced and smart technologies like Machine Learning in the next five years.
How Machine Learning Can Help In The Marketing Domain?
Below are the ways in which Machine Learning plays an important role in Marketing:
1) Enhance Customer Experience
With Machine Learning, it becomes easy for the companies to improve their selling journey as well as for the customers to improve their buying journey. Since it is based on patterns, an algorithm can be created that suggests personalized recommendations based on past shopping trends, an alternative to ‘out of stock’ items which ultimately enhances customer experience.
2) Develop New Products & Services
Marketing companies can get to know about different customer views, whether they liked the products or not, the new features that customers are looking for. This will help to increase product offerings and develop new products and services.
3) Analyze Customers’ Online Habits & Record Statistics
Machine Learning helps to keep a track of different customer habits like no. of times a website was visited, emails opened, ads clicked, downloads initiated, etc. Customer involvement data like ads preference, accounts, or product categories followed, liked posts, etc. can be tracked.
These statistics would be very difficult to track with human intervention and this is where Machine Learning helps to get the job done quickly and efficiently.
4) Targeted Advertisements
Advertising is the backbone of Marketing without which your products and services won’t reach the customers. Previously, in the olden days, advertising campaigns were launched on some amount of guesswork. And many times these did not resonate with the customers.
But nowadays, with Machine Learning algorithms, it is possible to generate advertisements that target customers accurately. It takes into account their interests and shows what they want.
For example, Google Ads campaign is quite smart when it comes to targeted advertisements. Another example is the Japanese automobile brand Mazda. It organized the #MazdaSXSW campaign that used A.I. to target a niche audience and promote the brand.
5) Chatbots
Chatbots were possible due to the advancements in A.I. and Machine Learning played an important role in the same. These eliminate human interventions and the need to keep customers “engaged” with the company, greet new visitors, provide 24 x 7 support.
Chatbots include Machine Learning algorithms that learn on their own with increasing interactions with a variety of people.
Note: In the next blog, we will cover the list of companies that offer AI-based Chatbot products & respective features.
6) Recognize Products & Customer Interests
Companies can decide their marketing strategy better if they recognize who is searching and looking for their products in the online world. User-generated content like posts, images, videos, likes, etc. can be tracked and searched for the products that users are talking about.
Other technologies like Augmented Reality can also use Machine Learning to better identify products, overlay digital content in the physical world to help customers make their purchasing choice.
7) Mood Analysis
In any type of face-to-face conversation, it is easier to know the body language, the mood, the actual feelings of the customer. But today, since we live in a digital world, the concept and the need for this face-to-face communication is decreasing. Due to digital conversations like emails or direct messaging, we cannot know for sure what the other person is thinking.
Machine Learning can help in this case as it analyses the text, the patterns and understand what customers are feeling; what sentiment they have. This information can then be used to respond appropriately to customers, drive them towards the companies’ products and services.
What is Deep Learning?
Deep Learning is a subset of Machine Learning which includes algorithms that train machines to learn from unstructured or unlabelled data. It uses artificial neural networks technology and learning can be supervised, semi-supervised, or unsupervised.
In Marketing, Deep Learning may help in automatic content generation, speech recognition, natural language processing, etc. One of the main applications of this is smart devices at home wherein you can shop via speech (Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, Siri, Microsoft Cortana).
Conclusion
Thus, Machine Learning is not only important in other fields but also plays an important role in Marketing. It helps to organize and structure businesses and make their marketing process easier.
It also helps consumers to make their purchasing decision faster and efficient, since they have to choose from a variety of products and services in the market. Technologies like Machine Learning which are based on A.I. will continue to grow in the future and ultimately help mankind to solve complex problems.
