Intelligent tools are taking over.
With the proliferation of chatbots, marketing automation, and machine learning, we marketers have opened up ways to send our messaging at scale.
We’ve reduced human capital and data is changing the way we do business.
But should machines replace humans? And how do brands use these tools while still keeping the human front and center with their branding?
Quick Takeaways:
- Big data, AI, automation, IoT, are all tools that are very important in order to make a commercial impact with marketing.
- Consumers want solutions to their problems. They don’t mind if it’s humans or tools interacting with them, as long as the answers are accurate.
- Predictive analytics helps you with CRM, social selling and content marketing — all essential to growing your brand.
The Connected Consumer
The connected consumer is just marketing jargon for the consumer.
It’s not just millennials who infiltrate the interwebs.
- 5 billion people – over half the world’s population – now use a smartphone.
- More than half of the world’s web traffic now comes from mobile phones.
- More than 1 in 5 of the world’s population shopped online in the past 30 days.
(Source: Digital in 2017: Global Overview by We Are Social)
And what does the connected consumer want?
It turns out they don’t mind the use of intelligent tools — like chatbots — but they want their online and offline experiences to be seamless.
Meaning if the chatbot isn’t cutting it, they want a human to intervene immediately. This seems to be a big disconnect with companies using AI; they think machines can entirely replace humans while consumers are not ready to make that leap.
Knowing this, how can brands use intelligent tools and still keep their humanity? [Here are a few more ideas on Mark Schaefer’s {grow} blog.]
Marketing with Intelligent Tools
Intelligent tools are things like automation, competitive intelligence, business intelligence, machine learning, artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, and so on. You’ve seen them being used in marketing with your tool suite, with chatbots, and other social and advertising algorithms.
In fact, AI and Machine Learning were slated as the #3 marketing activity that marketers thought would make the largest impact on their business last year.
Predictive analytics was up there, too.
Still not convinced intelligent tools are relevant to you?
Salesforce released a report on the state of marketing in 2018 that showed,
- High-performing marketing teams are more than 2x as likely to use AI in their campaigns than under-performers
- 57% of marketers using AI already say it’s absolutely or very essential in helping increase touch points with customers and prospects
A few places you can easily get your feet wet …
- Chatbots for customer service or sales-related tasks
- Advertising automation and optimization
- Content personalization (you should already be doing this, IMO!)
Intelligent Tools + Humans
One cool example of a brand doing the online-offline seamless experience right is Panera. (no surprise there, right?!)
Panera makes ordering seamless by allowing their customers to order in three ways,
- Online
- With a human
- In-store on a touchscreen
You can even choose your table when ordering through Panera’s website. SWEET!
This is a great example of using intelligent tools to help with efficiency, but not at the detriment of giving consumers a choice.
There are other ways to keep the human in your intelligent tools loop …
Chatbots
Be transparent! Let the consumer know from the start that they’re chatting with a bot. Be sure to also let them know how they can chat with a human instead, or when and how humans are available for customer service.
(Chatbots are a seriously easy way to dip your toe into AI waters!)
Social Listening
Letting a social listening tool (like we do with Sprout Social!) do the heavy lifting with machines is smart. What’s smarter? Letting the data the machine churn out help you make better decisions around,
- Online conversations
- Customer service
- Marketing research
- Product development
Predictive Analytics
A few weeks ago, we had an eye-opening conversation with Katie Robbert of Trust Insights on how marketers can use predictive analytics to help with social media marketing.
Katie goes into detail about how predictive analytics can help marketers with
- Content marketing
- Analytics
- CRM data (social selling, FTW!)
- Advertising
The options are literally endless.
Watch our video below for some smart examples of how you can use predictive analytics.
There are a myriad of ways we can connect the machine … and keep the human touch.
Say HELLO With B Squared Media To Learn More
Whether you’re on the fence about intelligent tools, or just want to ensure you’re keeping the human element in your intelligent tools loops, we’re here to help.
In fact, on March 28th, 2019 we’re hosting our first-ever marketing conference on this exact topic.
Join B Squared Media and our world-renowned experts — Mark Schaefer, Katie Robbert & Christopher Penn of Trust Insights, Luke Reynebeau of Sprout Social, and more — as we not only show you how to use these powerful machines, but how to stay human while doing so.
Attendees are going to have their socks knocked off — not only with the sessions each speaker is presenting on but with some seriously heavy-hitting swag and super secret special events.
Are you already marketing with intelligent tools? Comment below with your intelligent tool use (and how you keep it human).
