Artificial Intelligence: Transforming Business Analytics and Predictive Intelligence

Marketers, being marketers, love to embrace the technology that will generate more leads, convert prospects and generate sustainable sales revenue in shortest possible time. Now, the computers are smarter and learning things faster than ever. In last two decades, the field of business has changed from real to virtual, and so have the rules of engagement. In the context of marketing and sales technology industry, Artificial Intelligence offers the most accurate, sustainable and effective platform to marketers. Data, thanks to Artificial Intelligence, has a better chance of turning into a possible business success through automated marketing and sales engagements.

Artificial Intelligence: The Human-Robot Race

Change or perish; that is exactly what will happen with the businesses that fail to deploy Artificial Intelligence in their operations. What started as a gaming experience is now set to become a full-blown, ready-to-market technology. Each year, billions of dollars are pumped into AI-related projects to understand the sustainability of machine-learning algorithms and their compatibility with general intelligence.

According to a report from Narrative Science based on the survey done by the National Business Research Institute (NBRI), “38% of enterprises are using Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies in 2016 and 62% will use AI technologies by 2018.” Till 2015, Big Data was the most talked about technology. Now, it’s all about Artificial Intelligence and virtual assistance. Businesses beyond the year 2017 will see a seamless integration of technology with wisdom.

Evaluating AI Technology: Top Applications in Marketing and Sales

The relevance of AI Technology in the modern digital landscape can be evaluated by learning about its most contemporary applications. Here are 5 applications exclusive to Marketing and Sales campaigns.

1. Boost customized search

The first point of engagement is always about keeping the visitor interested. Marketing and sales campaigns curate the most relevant campaigns on websites, social media, search engines and display advertisements. It is all based on the requirements of the prospect.

2. Amplify website design

90% of the customers invariably visit the official website before making a choice. AI-driven websites are designed using intelligent cursor motion management, content display, color palette modification and typography choice. Based on ease of reading and device use, the automated website design renders a flawless user-interface for highest retention.

3. Drive cross-device engagement

No matter what device the customer is using—tablet, smartphone, desktop or even IoT gadgets, AI algorithms seamlessly extract data and provide the best model of engagement to interact with the customer. Segmenting of customers, display coupons, and ads, and personalized emails are part of this cross-device engagement based on AI.

4. Earn 100% ROI from accurate Purchase prediction

Anticipating the needs of the consumer is the crux of any business. With AI technology, marketing and sales campaigns can be personalized for each prospect based on predictive analysis. A refined purchase prediction based on automated sales and marketing picks small but significant hints from consumer behavior to drive revenues.

5. Perform unbiased social community dissection

Emotions still rule the psyche of the buyer. AI in Social media is yet to make a sizeable impact on business decisions in terms of delivering tangible results. However, robot chats (chat-bot messages) and automatic tweeters have a huge influence on the social behavior. Marketing and sales campaigns can be automated by acquiring sentiment analytics based on the number of likes, reactions, shares, recommendations made and reviews done.

Apart from these applications, AI technology can also render extensive security protection, fraud detection, and risk mitigation solutions. Moreover, ad targeting campaigns based on search engine recommendations can be strategized in such a way that they have maximum outreach.

Pinning the Donkey’s Tail: Top AI Solutions

1. Google

Nobody does it better than Google. Android voice recognition by Google is the best example of AI application that generates maximum leads with probable conversions, online and offline. Wearables, local search-based results, and online automated chats are basic levels of AI applications developed by Google.

Since 2012, Deep Learning has remained the locus of Google’s AI-driven marketing strategies and sales revenue. Google and other technology leaders like IBM, Apple Inc., Facebook, Intel, and Amazon are all engaged in the “Race for Bots”, and it’s good for the marketers.

2. Diffbot

Conspicuous by its popularity among the top Ecommerce and digital retailers across the world, Diffbot is a start-up AI-driven database scraper that helps its clients refine their data structuring and marketing strategies. It makes computers get better at browsing the internet with AI technology.

3. Salesforce

Salesforce Einstein is referred to as the most refined CRM platform in the business domain. It offers end-to-end AI solutions for marketing campaigns, sales and services and social media engagements. Salesforce Deep Dive AI is a learning tutorial on how marketers can actually use technology to innovate better products.

4. Jibo

Jibo is a promising auto-bot that does everything you expect your smartphone to do, albeit with an advanced human interactivity. It can recognize faces, voices and even movements of the people around it, and responds accordingly. Jibo could well replace the desk executives in some years.

5. Banjo

Banjo erupted in the mind of a NASCAR mechanic, Damin Patton! Very different from the AI technology solutions offered above, Banjo is exclusive to social media and media entertainment domain. It offers unmatched media solutions to help clients make better marketing decisions using innovative channels of engagement and real-time news reporting from across the world.

Prospects of AI Technology in Marketing and Sales

To drive sales of any kind, quality data is the key element. AI Technology filters the data discretely to piece together different types of information in a logical, systematic manner.

For the sake of simplicity, information can be divided into three categories.

• Quantitative information: Consumer data like gadgets used, location, ethnicity, gender, preferences, shopping behavior, likes and dislikes, personal information, contact details, etc.
• Qualitative information: Predictive analytics based on customer queries, chat messages, log-in details
• Business information: Value addition from business side like sending e-mailers, subscription notes, discounts, newsletters, webinar invites, etc.

The Application of AI

With AI, the quantity and quality of information are equally important. Thanks to the logical interpretation, the marketing and sales channels can add business values accordingly to allure prospects and drive revenues.

What Constitutes AI and What Does Not?

AI technology is a complex, yet systematic and meaningful arrangement of business entities like sales, marketing, services, and Information Technology. AI is exclusively reserved for machines that can mimic the general intelligence demonstrated by humans.

AI technology constitutes of the following domains.

• Learning through computation, supervision, and perception
• Social intelligence
• Logic-based operations
• Statistical recommendations, predictive analytics
• Language learning

Common sense, emotional intelligence, and machine consciousness/ mindfulness are not part of AI technology. Moral decision-making can’t be expected out of systems working on AI Technology, at least not as yet.

Challenges: AI Technology is handicap without the human touch

AI presents a huge practicable potential to pierce deeply into every arena of information technology. The challenges faced in IT and Energy Management haunt AI applications too. Another challenge is the preference of humans towards machines and virtual assistants. Management prefers to hire “live” workforce rather than relying on machines to dig data and deliver results from them.

The Bottom Line: AI Is the Rock-Bed of Marketing Future

Human intelligence combined with the machine-learning algorithms has a higher chance of delivering an outcome that is closest to the projected sales figures. Due to an automated real-time processing of the data, it is possible to generate more than one version of the outcome. Analytics become easy to understand, and hugely favor marketing and advertising campaigns.

As the digital space gets more crowded, competition is bound to grow stronger. The only point of differentiation separating the best from the rest is the use of cutting edge technology. A technology that never sleeps, requires no feed-forwards and works 24/7 with 100% accountability.

In short, AI technology is going to grow bigger, quicker and more human as the computers start opening their eyes.