Nowadays, customers aren’t just looking for content, products, or solutions made for people like them.
They want things tailored for them specifically.
It’s true: Personalization is something more customers have come to expect out of companies, and similarly, companies are investing more in personalized campaigns. Companies can increase their revenue by about 40% from personalization, according to McKinsey research.
But how can you touch all your customers in the same meaningful way? Enter AI.
In this blog, we’ll talk about how you can use AI to give your customers a personalized experience, which AI tools you can use to increase engagement, and potential pitfalls you can expect—and avoid.
Why Does Personalization Matter, and How Can AI Help?
More shopping is done online, but you knew that. What you may not know is that consumers view personalization as the default for their shopping experiences, with 71% expecting it out of companies—and 76% feeling frustrated when that expectation isn’t met.
In a nutshell: If you’re not personalizing the way you’re engaging with your customers, you’re going to leave a huge number of them looking elsewhere.
Artificial intelligence (AI) gives you a whole new way to deliver personalized experiences to your customers—and with a fraction of the effort from doing it entirely on your own. The tools available now can create more engaging interactions that boost your ROI and conversion rates, so you get and retain more customers.
AI can also help on multiple fronts, using functions like machine learning, natural language processing, and other algorithms to help you tailor your content marketing strategy, predict consumer behavior, provide excellent customer service, and more.
Let’s talk about some of the tools you can start incorporating into your strategy.
Related: Moving Beyond Generic in the World of Marketing
AI Tools to Use to Get More Personal
AI can help you understand and speak with your customers in a variety of ways, and much of that behavior happens in the form of data collection.
Data collection AI tools can help you make sense of customer habits, interactions, and behaviors, so you can better understand who you’re marketing to. It’s a quick, first step toward better identifying your audience.
You can also use predictive behavioral analysis tools that track how your customers are engaging with your brand and your competition, so you can watch out for potential roadblocks or hesitations they may have.
Similarly, several machine learning tools act as a crystal ball, giving you insights into your customers’ future choices, habits, and preferences based on how they’ve already interacted with your brand and similar brands.
Once you’ve nailed down who your audience is and how they’re likely to engage with you, you can focus on creating personalized content. Offering personalized recommendations, exclusive promotions, and tailored landing pages are just the tip of the iceberg. The data you’ve collected from the tools above will help you tailor your offerings and your messaging to speak directly with the people you’re targeting.
Beyond the shopping or browsing experience, you can continue to personally engage with customers using AI-powered social listening tools that monitor for mentions of your brand across social media, so you know how you’re being received in real-time.
The more feedback you ingest, the better your campaign efforts will be—but you may have to pivot on a dime. This is where content creation tools can help you create personalized ads, videos, images, blogs, and more that speak directly to your customers’ needs.
Finally, you’ll also want to focus on AI support tools, such as chatbots, to give your customers instant support across social media platforms and your own brand website based on common questions or concerns.
Clearly, there’s a lot AI can do—but there is such a thing as relying on it too much.
Related: Leveraging Technology: The Role of Automation in Marketing
Potential Pitfalls to Avoid Now
While it may seem tempting to jump into every one of the tools we’ve talked about above, the best way to incorporate AI into your existing marketing efforts is as support—not the bread and butter of your brand.
AI isn’t a replacement for what you’re already doing. It’s a way to enhance your current efforts. A sales scientist quoted in The Role of AI in Marketing: Smart Strategies for Maximum Impact said it best:
“Instead of replacing people, AI is going to allow people to work faster.”
Losing the human touch in your marketing efforts is something customers can and will notice. This is especially true with content-creating AI tools, which tend to have characteristic writing styles that customers can spot a mile away. Similarly, AI chatbots—while helpful—shouldn’t be the only form of customer service your brand deploys. It’s a delicate balancing act, but the objective is not to get too reliant on the technology.
Similarly, deploying too many AI tools at once can actually overwhelm your audience. Imagine getting bombarded by dozens of emails, ads, and social posts in a short timeframe. That level of engagement could leave your audience overwhelmed, rather than wanting more. When choosing the tools you want to use, be picky! Stick to technologies that fill gaps you’ve already identified in your marketing strategy, and keep note of how they’re working over time.
Finally, be sure to vet every tool you introduce carefully. Each addition could put you at risk of security issues—such as a breach—especially if you don’t have complete visibility over every tool. Ensure that the right teams are involved in assessing the security of the tools you’re evaluating.
Related: 8 Signs Your B2B Marketing Needs an Overhaul
Get More Out of AI
AI is a bigger topic than we could cover in one blog, so don’t let this be where your research ends!
If you’ve been considering incorporating AI into your existing marketing strategy or want to reevaluate what you’re using now, check out The Role of AI in Marketing: Smart Strategies for Maximum Impact for help understanding how you can use AI through every phase of your marketing strategy—from goal-setting to closing sales.