Lekin kya matlab hai iss ka? You need to hop on the bandwagon and kick it down a gear to stay ahead of the trends in the business industry. Here’s the good news - Artificial Intelligence (AI) can do this for you. 

 

Let me explain what the AI craze is all about. The hype and buzz around AI and its potential have been like a viral fever, with temperatures hitting the roof as of late. How will AI impact the future of businesses and relevant marketing strategies? How can marketers prepare now for the future? AI is the face of a new wave of digital transformation that impacts businesses all around the globe.

 

Technological interactions have become multi-device and multi-sensory experiences. With many ecosystems like that of Apple’s based on the iCloud, or Google’s with Google Home, or even Amazon’s Alexa, we become increasingly used to one thing: convenience. The convenience of having all your devices connected, interacting with each other, making your life safer, more secure, and bringing the sukoon you were always looking for. Intelligence will become inescapable across devices due to these ecosystems and interconnected, interdependent platforms of apps. Lastly, AI will enable marketers to make sense of colossal amounts of data, turning the behemoth into a mere plaything called actionable insights.

 

Machine learning, predictive analytics, and algorithm programming have taken the tech world by storm. Technological developments are continuously occurring at exponential rates, which enhance our ability to draw actionable value from data. Marketers will need machine learning tools to organise and integrate these data signals into an effective marketing strategy. AI can be leveraged to process and optimize multiple data signals, turning these signals into insights. AI allows marketers to understand their customers and their needs through speech, text, images and video gestures. This makes the analysis very coherent and efficient. Not only is AI accurate in making these predictions off natural cues, but it also accelerates business decisions tenfold.

 

New audiences can be reached through Microsoft’s rich data graph which includes 2.5 billion entities on Bing and 148 million Cortana users, along with 1.5 billion Windows users and 500 million active LinkedIn members. You have the data (which is regulated and needs to be used keeping policies in mind) to make great changes at your fingertips. This data will help you develop and deliver personalisation at an elephantine scale, catering to each individual simultaneously. 44% of consumers are more likely to shop on e-commerce websites that provide personalised recommendations. Just as in traditional business, the one-to-one relationship with the customer is the key to every pandora’s box. This applies to e-commerce as well. Despite both the buyer and seller engaging with each other while comfortably seated behind a screen, we lose that sense of belonging and connection. Hum bhool jatay hain ke screen ki doosri side pe bhi insaan hai...kabhi kabhi. Bing ko dekh lo. Bing is Microsoft’s largest AI application, constantly churning and sifting through data to produce millions of personalised results on the go. Bing uses data and insights to curate the consumer experience and offer content and product recommendations in real time.

 

At the end of the day, the business has one goal. Satisfying the customer in every way possible, and ensuring that they come to you the next time instead of your competitor. This is where AI will shine in the future as the face of any brand. AI can help humanise the entire e-experience through integration of intelligent apps, cognitive services, bots and voice optimisation to ensure a personalised humane experience for every customer. To ensure that customers are delighted with their experience, a great resource are Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. These systems learn consumers’ behaviour and preferences through repeated interactions to develop consumer profiles that is eventually used to produce and deliver custom-tailored outbound marketing such as recommendation, rewards and content.

 

Conversational AI is a great tool to allow customer engagement when the customer wants it. Digital assistants and chatbots are great resources for businesses to employ to reduce costs and ensure 24/7 coverage of consumer concerns and queries. 44% of customers have used a chat interface in a retail scenario, with 43% saying it positively impacts their shopping experience and perception of the brand. 

 

Here is how we can employ cutting edge-technology to amplify our reach to consumers:

  • Encourage customers to engage with you through virtual assistants and chatbots
  • Streamline purchase to action by using bot conversations in marketing campaigns and consumer targeting strategies
  • Ensure chatbots have high emotional intelligence (EQ) along with knowledge IQ. This will humanise the shopping experience which is exactly what customers are looking for.

 

Digital innovation and digital personalisation are key to ensure brands can reach out to as many consumers as they can on a daily basis. Small businesses have resorted to purchasing machine learning platforms to assist with day to day outreach strategies. While getting exact customers needs and preferences are necessary, managing the data is the struggle most companies face. In order to overcome these barriers, the easiest thing to do is to employ companies and services that do the dirty work for you. 

 

Here’s a list of services that could be employed to help businesses with machine learning, analytics, and advanced consumer targeting:

 

  • Bizsugar: a community website that allows for entrepreneurs and small businesses to publish, share, discover and comment on small business content
  • ExploreB2B: a social publishing platform that focuses on B2B communication
  • Bundle Post: automates content organisation and social sharing, allowing for marketing professionals to add feeds and alerts
  • Oktopost: if you need to monitor brand and keyword mentions in real-time, and measure results of campaigns, Oktopost is the resource for you
  • Buzzstream: a Customer Relationship Management tool that allows for a business to find, pitch and follow up with influencers and deal with press outreach
  • GaggleAMP: a platform dedicated to amplify corporate social media efforts which allows companies with greater than 200 employees to create and refine content across major social media networks

 

 

The world of business has become increasingly dependent on technology and the use of multiple platforms and services to streamline business processes and to take businesses to the next level. Implementation of such machine learning and data analytics services will allow for small, medium and large businesses to capture larger markets and to maximise on investments to profit from every single customer. At the end of the day, business ka kaam hai aur business nikaalna.