It may seem counterintuitive mentioning artificial intelligence (AI) alongside making connections. We’ve been told time and again that AI can’t feel emotions. However, emotions are instrumental in providing insight into consumers’ mindsets.
With enough data, AI can successfully determine what a consumer considers essential. The modern consumer doesn’t want good marketing; they want connection, and AI is well-poised to show marketers where they can connect to their consumers.
Below, 12 members of Forbes Agency Council examine how AI can aid marketers in establishing genuine connections with their customers.
Members explain how to leverage artificial intelligence when connecting with your customers.
Photos courtesy of the individual members
1. Optimize The Buyer’s Journey
Marketers can leverage AI to improve the buyer’s journey. AI provides a continuous collection of data based on consumer behavior which can be used to make adjustments to the buyer persona. It also gives you valuable insights that can allow you to produce content your target audience will find more useful. Thanks to AI, marketers can improve the efficiency of the buyer’s journey. – Osama Khabab, MotionCue
2. Predict Delight
Voice of the customer data is everywhere but requires unifying and simplifying it with AI. Using a tool like sentiment analysis, we can mine public customer reviews and identify what users are saying about our brand experience (and competitors) to drive innovation. For one of our clients, this led to us rethinking the offline experience around wait times at checkout, leveraging the online data. – Jacob Cook, Tadpull
3. Identify Consumer Habits
AI can often be used to identify consumer habits more accurately based on the social accounts they follow and the products they search. When taking that information into consideration, marketers can better target content and messaging based on trending data sets. – Jordan Edelson, Appetizer Mobile LLC
4. Determine Consumer Preferences
One of the values of AI is its ability to dig below the surface to help you understand relationships between two factors that might not be obvious otherwise. For marketing, AI can help bring some of those relationships to the surface. Use AI to find the hidden patterns of behavior or consumer preferences — and then take advantage of them. – Jodi Amendola, Amendola Communications
5. Use Data Points To Keep Buyers Hooked
Depending on the frequency of purchases, AI can use customers’ data to understand their buying patterns and retain them by offering products that are most likely to convert them if there’s a disruption in their purchase cycles. – Ashar Jamil, Digitally Up
6. Ensure Multichannel Communication
I see many brands overuse AI and automation, making it too difficult for consumers to interact with them. Don’t do it. AI is great for removing friction in communication, but it can’t replace a real human-to-human connection. Customers value simplicity and efficiency, so that’s what you need to focus on. Don’t try to replace humans. Instead, make it easy to connect with them across all channels. – Solomon Thimothy, OneIMS
7. Find Your Targets
The most obvious way companies should be leveraging AI to connect with consumers is by using it to find their targets. Through simple keyword research, marketers can see where their potential customers live on the internet. Once connections take place, once emotions are struck, the brand simply needs to deliver a steady stream of content and product to turn their potential customers into loyal ones. – Terry Tateossian, Socialfix Media
8. Tap Into Consumer Engagement
Consumer engagement tools like 1Q and Suzy offer companies a direct line to consumers via their platforms. Traditional surveying/polling is antiquated. Such platforms can find people while they are shopping, for example, and ask them what they think of X product on the shelf at Target. Based on the response, they can drill down further with that consumer. It’s the future of understanding brands. – Dean Trevelino, Trevelino/Keller
9. Install A Chatbot On Your Website
Six months ago we installed Chatlio on the Special Guest website. Not only did we see a nearly 40% increase in website conversions, but we also noticed a significant increase in customer engagement. Most chatbots allow you to build AI into the experience to intelligently automate many basic customer service inquiries. This simple interaction reduces traffic bounce rate and increases engagement. – Kristopher Jones, LSEO
10. Forge More Personalized Connections
AI can transform data into deeper understanding of the motivations underpinning what “connection” means to humans in 2020. One customer’s sense of connection can be created through a brand’s understanding of their tastes, while another’s is born from experiencing the brand’s societal impact. AI frees marketing from a one-size-fits-all approach into an era of forging more personalized connection. – Camille Nicita, Gongos, Inc.
11. Make Your Story Come To Life
Imagine a product label that comes alive. I’ve seen wonderful examples of click-and-display videos that cause labels to tell the story behind a brand. Two very good ones are represented by Dr. Sheffields’s Toothpaste and 19 Crimes (from Living Wine). Although not “true” AI, this approach may nicely connect a retail package with a consumer. – Dave Wendland, Hamacher Resource Group
12. Leverage Artificial Ad Intelligence
AI is still in its infancy but the likes of Google and Facebook are leveraging machine learning and AI as part of their ad platforms to make ad testing and optimization faster and more accurate. So, if you are using either of these ad platforms, use the built-in learning and ad optimization options that are already available to you. The best part? They won’t cost you a dime. – Bernard May, National Positions
