Brands have access to terabytes more customer data than they did just a few years ago, but most organizations are using only 10 percent of what they collect. When you AI in the driver’s seat, you enable high-touch, multichannel engagement. Join Forrester analyst Rusty Warner and others to learn how to break out of the AI hype cycle and start applying it for notable returns.
The hype is impossible to escape — but the promise of artificial intelligence is real. To clear away the cloud of buzzwords, jargon, and an overcrowded market of AI tools offering miracles, we queried Forrester analyst Rusty Warner, and upcoming guest of the VB Live event, “AI-powered marketing: Put your customer data to work.” We asked some of our most burning AI and marketing questions because marketers need to understand the real potential of AI for marketing — and how AI can evolve your strategies — or transform them.
VB: Why do you think AI is necessary for marketing teams to manage customer data?
Warner: Capturing, integrating, and managing customer data is extremely challenging, and analyzing it to derive actionable business insights is even more difficult, especially for marketing users who may not have data science skillsets. Even for those who are data savvy, analyzing the massive volumes of customer data available today exceeds human cognitive capacity. AI addresses that challenge by providing scalable solutions to integrate and analyze customer data as it grows in complexity, volume, and velocity.
VB: How does AI support personalized, cross-channel marketing?
Warner: Marketers leverage AI in various ways today to build audiences, personalize content for individual customers, and optimize outcomes for customers and their business. Most use cases involve machine learning, but there are also emerging solutions that leverage natural language processing and generation, voice and facial recognition, image and video analysis, and even deep learning and neural networks.
Some of those use cases include:
- AI-enhanced predictive models for customer propensity to buy or churn, and customer lifetime value modeling
- Look-alike modeling for targeting high-value audiences
- Probabilistic identity stitching across channels and devices
- Content personalization, content fatigue scoring, and dynamic content assembly based on customer context
- Subject line, hero image and send-time optimization for email
- Anomaly detection and data visualization or analytics assistants
- Predictive customer journeys and customer touch sequence optimization
- Marketing or media mix modeling and optimization
- Algorithmic cross-channel attribution and measurement
- Inferred customer preference management and automated customer profiles
VB: What would you say to a company just starting to consider AI marketing? Any cautions or recommendations?
Warner: I’d advise anyone evaluating AI-powered marketing to consider the use case they want to address. Look at your strategy and the objective you are trying to achieve, assess the people and processes you have in place to work on it, review the data you have available, and then evaluate technology options that may provide value. You can’t just purchase an AI solution and expect immediate returns.
VB: What’s next for AI and marketing?
Warner: AI-powered marketing is evolving quickly. Today’s mainstream solutions detect patterns in data and expose insights to marketers for them to take action. In some cases these actions may be automated, with appropriate thresholds defined by marketing, like real-time bidding engines for digital advertising or send-time optimization within an email environment. Eventually, as the technology improves and marketers define the appropriate use cases, we can expect more AI automation.
Want to learn more? Join Forrester, VentureBeat, and Blueshift in this frank discussion of AI, customer data, and cross-channel marketing. You’ll walk away with a solid understanding of what it takes to fully integrate customer data and AI into your cross-channel marketing.
Don’t miss out!
In this webinar you’ll:
- Understand the power of the customer data you have at your fingertips
- Learn how to leverage data to drive personalized, cross-channel marketing
- Discover how AI can transform your marketing strategy
Speakers:
- Rusty Warner, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research
- Vijay Chittoor, CEO, Blueshift
- Shannon Johlic, Director of Marketing, Blueshift
- Stewart Rogers, Analyst at Large, VentureBeat
- Rachael Brownell, Moderator, VentureBeat
Sponsored by Blueshift
