Marketing strategies are continuously changing due to the advancing technology. Technology sets the bar high for people’s expectations worldwide. With more innovations, customers expect more and companies are striving to accommodate their expectations.
As a result, the competition between companies has been increasing at an unstoppable rate. Marketers are facing the challenge of keeping up with this change. The solution I am about to present may seem daunting at first, but trust me, it has its benefits: Artificial Intelligence.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a significant trend. Companies using AI software can experience a rise in productivity and growth.
What is Artificial Intelligence?
Artificial Intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence in machines. In simple terms, a computer system is designed to mimic human information, behavior, understanding, speech, and emotions. These machines can make decisions and solve problems to achieve specific goals, just like humans.
Have you ever interacted with an AI chatbot? If not, consider this example: Imagine you visited an eCommerce website to buy a product and started chatting with customer service. It felt like you were receiving automated responses that were sometimes out of context. That was an AI chatbot.
So, how can we use Artificial Intelligence in eCommerce marketing? Here are the benefits that Artificial Intelligence offers for marketing:
1) Personalization & Buyer Persona.
The goal is to attract customers and persuade them to buy products and services. Understanding a consumer’s needs is a challenging task. If you understand the preferences, likes, and dislikes of your customers, you can provide them with the products they are more interested in.
Personalization is currently maintained using information such as ‘search history,’ ‘purchased goods,’ or ‘site navigation.’ However, this simple analysis cannot accurately predict a customer’s thoughts or future purchase intentions.
On the other hand, customer engagement can yield powerful results. By engaging your customers in real-time, you get to know them better; you understand their values, motivations, and preferences.
This technology can provide a deep understanding of customers at an individual level, allowing you to connect with the right customers at the right time and improve your ‘predictive eCommerce marketing’ strategy.
How it works:
- Artificial Intelligence uses algorithms to analyze data for patterns and learn from them to respond to specific tasks effectively.
- With this data, marketers can group customers according to their interests and activities.
- Marketers can then offer recommendations, messages, and products that are relevant to each customer. This results in a highly personalized experience.
2) AI Assistant.
What is a Virtual Assistant?
AI assistant, or an AI ‘Virtual Assistant,’ is a program designed to understand and respond to natural language, perform tasks, and answer routine queries from visitors.
If buyers receive timely answers to queries, they will feel that you value their time and are working for their satisfaction. Virtual assistants like Siri, Cortana, or Alexa currently exist and can provide factual information to buyers.
Tasks that an AI Virtual Assistant can perform:
- Arrange appointments
- Answer Emails
- Check the weather forecast
- Provide news & reports
- Create to-do-lists
- Create text messages & reminders
- Manage calendars
- Create shopping lists
- Find directions and nearby locations
- Answer various queries (general conversation, arithmetic, etc.)
- Play games (tic-tac-toe, wordplay, hangman, etc.)
- Request songs
- Check traffic and flight status
- Control smart home devices
The benefits of an AI virtual assistant are numerous, as they save time, costs, and reduce workplace drama.
3) Faster Customer Service With Artificial Intelligence.
ECommerce Marketing focuses on satisfying clients to convert them into potential buyers. Consumers want to feel valued at individual levels, and real-time interaction can achieve this.
Artificial Intelligence offers a solution to the challenge of interacting with thousands of customers at an individual level. AI chatbots provide better and faster customer service, engaging humans and providing valuable information.
Benefits of customer service chatbots:
- Rapidly answer queries and reduce waiting time for customers
- Increase customer engagement by resembling human nature in conversations
- Reduce workload by quickly answering questions and handling multiple customers simultaneously
- Decrease errors by providing error-free answers to customer queries
4) Cost-Effective & Profit-Friendly.
Artificial Intelligence can reduce customer service costs by 30 percent, saving companies up to $8 billion annually by 2022. An AI chatbot can answer 80 percent of customer queries quickly and reduce the chance of errors, leading to increased revenue and cost reduction.
How chatbots reduce costs:
- Reduce labor cost by handling queries and providing accurate answers quickly
- Lower operational cost by reducing incoming calls, emails, and messages
5) Smarter Ads, Messages & Notifications.
Artificial intelligence is a self-learning program that interacts with the environment to develop familiarity. AI can self-tune and provide relevant solutions by learning from customer requests, conversations, purchases, and navigation. AI can direct the right advertisements, offers, messages, and notifications to the right customers at the right time.
In conclusion, Artificial Intelligence offers numerous benefits in various fields, including marketing. The top 5 benefits highlighted here can be effectively applied in eCommerce. Whether it meets your needs depends on how you implement it. What are your thoughts about AI? Share your ideas in the comments.
