The goal for all marketers is to find ways to target their audience with as much accuracy as possible. This isn’t always an easy task, because it’s hard to know the wants and needs of customers without actually sitting down with each individual and asking them. As a result, marketing has always required a lot of guesswork from companies trying to connect with their audiences.
Now there’s a new tool in the marketing toolbox that’s making that kind of precise connection a much more realistic goal than ever. When people hear about artificial intelligence for the first time, it’s likely that the words conjure up some fantastic, futuristic visions in their minds. But it’s much more of a reality than one might think, and it’s becoming widespread and affordable enough to become a relatively common tactic for marketers. It’s now just a matter of marketers using it effectively enough to warrant it being called the next big thing.
According to MDG Advertising, AI certainly is one of the dominant trends in the marketing world today. Its ubiquity among marketing professionalsis expected to increase, and, when used effectively, artificial intelligence could provide the direct line to customers that marketers have been looking for.
How It Helps
In the past, marketers didn’t always have much to go on in the way of data, so they often had to rely on hunches about whether their campaigns were hitting the right targets. But that doesn’t have to be the case anymore, since artificial intelligence can analyzehuge amounts of data in a fraction of the time that a human could ever hope to assess it. More than that, it also can draw conclusions from the data, predicting the right steps for marketers to take. Whether collecting information about website usage or analyzing how certain social media campaigns are doing, the uses of artificial intelligenceare practically limitless.
Keeping It About the Data
One of the things that hampers marketers is that they have preconceived notions about how certain things work, in terms of their efforts to bring in customers. The problem with that is that it introduces an element of bias into a situation that should be kept as objective as possible. Sticking to the information collected and analyzed by artificial intelligence can help eliminate the wrong moves brought about by a marketer’s “gut” feelings.
Putting It Together
Perhaps the most difficult part about using artificial intelligence is for marketers to synthesize all the information available to them. The data they receive could steer them in a direction they were already thinking of traveling,but there also could be conflicting information sources, which means that there should be an overriding effort to analyze the entirety of the information available and make the most informed decision possible.
Artificial intelligence is by no means a magic elixir that will cure all marketing problems. But, it can be one of the most effective weapons a marketer can use to break through the clutter and find their target audience.
