Automation in marketing is not about replacing your marketing team with a bunch of software that runs on autopilot; it is about enabling your marketing team to be more efficient and deliver a higher value for each dollar spent.
With the changing customer purchase journey, the way they access and seek information has changed dramatically; this, in turn, has brought a huge change in how marketers need to connect with prospects and customers.
The other thing to consider is: what defines a customer’s stickiness to a brand? Experience, Experience & Experience. If that be the case then all organizations need to focus on elevating the customer experience.
Customers today demand personalized attention and a seamless experience when engaging with the organization’s multiple channels. E.g. they may search, evaluate, research, and purchase online but pick up at the store or the other way round – they expect to be recognized at each step and get smooth engagement at all touchpoints. This has further added another element to the Marketer’s communication strategy – an extended engagement with the customer.
This is where Marketing Automation with Artificial Intelligence plays a key role. It allows marketers to leverage customer data, on an individual basis, to create automated programs, that follow the customer along his purchase journey, know when to engage to slowly guide him along his purchase journey to take the next steps, as well as know when to have its sales team reengage.
This makes the combination of marketing automation and artificial intelligence crazy powerful.
Artificial Intelligence helps shorten the learning cycle while marketing automation allows for a more personalized interaction over an extended period keeping the customer engaged with the brand. AI when combined well with marketing automation, produces some pretty radical benefits, allowing marketers to gain deep insights to know exactly where to focus and how to fix programs that may be underperforming. This technology enables marketers to hone their initiative and even go further afield, directing them to new possibilities they have not yet thought of.
Marketing automation is the adoption of technology/software platforms by marketing departments and organizations to effectively market across multiple channels online (such as email, social media, websites, etc.) and automate repetitive tasks.
AI in marketing is the use of customer data, machine learning, and other computational concepts to predict the recipient’s action or inaction. It can process large amounts of data that help marketers easily segment them, craft marketing techniques to target the right potential customers.
For effective use of marketing automation, there is one element of utmost importance that is CONTENT. You often hear these days “Content is the King”. This is so because Marketing automation allows for behavioral-based tracking – it tells the marketers who have engaged with your content and who have not. Armed with this information, they can be extremely tactical, and adapt the content in a way that engages the prospects and keep them in the fold.
It’s a win-win tool for both. For the organization, it enables the marketing team to be more effective in their reach and measure the results of their efforts for a customer, it helps them receive content that is of interest to them.
