“Learning from the past, evaluating the present, and envisioning the future” is one the main strategy used by marketers throughout every business.
Marketing defined by many as “The process by which companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return- Kotler and Armstrong” or as the “Management process for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably- CIM”
Nowadays along customers/buyers don’t only stop at satisfaction they expect for more that is:
- Consistency: 75% of consumers/buyers expect consistent experiences across multiple channels.
- Responsiveness: 66% of millennial consumers/buyers expect real-time responses and interactions.
- Personalization: 66% of customers/buyers expect their interactions with brands to be personalized.
So to fulfill all these expectations of the buyer’s marketers need to start moving from a one-size-fits-most to the perfect way of “Promoting and Selling the Perfect Product to the Right person at the Right time”.
And here is when Artificial intelligence (AI) comes into play which is defined as “A branch of computer science dealing with the simulation of intelligent behavior in computers” or “The capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior”
But when both marketing and Artificial Intelligence are integrated together they are termed as “Artificial intelligence marketing”, which is a form of marketing leveraging artificial intelligence concept and model such as machine learning and Bayesian network to achieve marketing goals. The main difference from the traditional way of marketing resides in a fact that this type of marketing is performed by computers and algorithm instead of humans completely.
This Artificial intelligence marketing provides a set of tools and techniques that enable “behavioral targeting”, one of the most important concepts used by marketers nowadays. It is centered on the activities of users. Browsing websites of the users are collected through the data mining, which finds patterns in users search history and then it is further used by marketers and advertisers to produce ads that will be more relevant to users and will mostly tempt to a particular user. Behavior targeting has now emerged as one of the main technologies to increase the efficiency and profits of digital marketing, as those properly targeted ads are fetching more consumer interests, even the publishers can charge a premium for behaviorally targeted ads and marketers can achieve the rising demands of their products. It is also known as “Audience Targeting”. This is one of the ways marketers are integrating AI in their work and expanding globally.
AI has become the major demand of time in this fast developing world even in the field of marketing, as one of the most important aspects of marketing called B2B marketing and its future is poised to be touched by Artificial Intelligence. This is the demand of time to integrate marketing with AI because of many reasons some of them are:
Gone are those ancient days when marketing influencers find it likely to market their product or service with print media, vivid billboards, and repeated ads on radio and TV channels or even physical appearances from door to door. Now it has been seen that the revenue generated from online ads is far more than old traditional methods. Such real-time statistics highlight how customers (B2B or B2C), are making their online exposure an indivisible part of their lives.
Also to address every minute of business customers and reach maximum acquisition, B2B marketing space must be filled with concentrated efforts towards learning their customers. Be it end users or corporate clients, each individual leaves behind a plethora of information through their online clicks and search, live campaigns, chat and e-mail communication, website visits, and purchase decisions. Pyramid of data like this needs a high-caliber automated system like AI that can organize, process it and create powerful insight after learning about customer mindset, demographics, and their behavior.
As customers are true heroes and work as an inspiration for establishing new channels of communications developed through unique innovations. So here the proactive use of AI robots and algorithms will enable B2B marketers to assemble and organize more data to properly imbibe the functioning of their existing business network made up of customers, suppliers, partners, distributors, and marketers.
Also, optimizing the cost is one of the dreadful challenges of marketing. But with the entire business cult getting online, machine learning sounds like a great choice to tackle marketing challenges pertaining to cost.
Machine Learning is the key to this Artificial intelligence that provides systems to the ability to automatically learn and improve from experience without being explicitly programmed.
Various real-time scenarios of this machine learning are:
- Chatbots and Voice Assistants: Like those of Google, Amazon, and Facebook
- User Engagement: Like Airship and Microsoft Azure which help merchants run their commerce more efficiently by proactively sensing the pulse customers and boosting retention rate.
- Natural Language Processing: As done by QuanticMind.
Now formulating an equation using this Machine learning with marketing we get:
Machine Learning + Intelligence + Digital Marketing = Empowered Customers
The equation stands to be right as the adoption of artificial intelligence in B2B marketing will not help marketers and business, but it will also touch customers by empowering them more than they can expect. This is where marketers can reap insights from their intelligent software and transform it into smart purchase decisions for customers.
So, in the nutshell, it can be well said that marketing geared up with AI can act as the controller in the market. Marketers can forecast what customer/buyer wish for and can satisfy them specifically with what they demand or even more or simply to say artificial intelligence can drive marketing prophecy. Also, top marketing influencers confirm that smart people (marketers) combined with machine learning will be the future of B2B marketing. As marketers will harvest new opportunities by using artificial intelligence in B2B sales and marketing by being the great storyteller.
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