Artificial intelligence (AI) is nothing new to human life. Since the development of computers, people have been developing AI-based tools and software for solving problems and completing tasks independently.
The use of Artificial Intelligence systems can be seen in medical diagnostics, agriculture, defence, air traffic control systems, and several other areas that continuously involve critical decision-making. These machines or computers do not need any specific domain expertise as they make decisions based on data provided by humans.
As mentioned earlier, for some time now, we have been using automated machines to solve complex problems and carry out certain activities automatically with great speed but less accurate than their human counterparts due to high dependency on algorithms and programming codes. It has only been a recent development where machines have been developed to learn from the experiences and data they receive.
We are now at a point where we can make computers do tasks earlier thought impossible due to a high degree of unpredictability. This can be done by providing examples, building up networks that help in processing a large amount of data related to the required task and then making machines carry out those activities without any assistance from humans.
This article focuses on some major digital marketing trends as mentioned by professionals and certain consumer buying patterns depending upon their online behaviour.
Consumer Buying Patterns Based On Their Online Behavior:
According to IBM’s survey carried out across 30 countries, it was found that more than 50% of the consumers prefer brands that they see on social networks. The survey also found that more than 50% of the respondents trust digital marketing over traditional advertisement forms and consider it trustworthy.
It has been observed through a survey by Boston Consulting Group, a business advisory firm, 73% of consumers say their buying decisions depend on customer experience and not just price or product features, while 90% claim they have purchased from brands after following them online for a long time.
Digital Marketing Trends:
Through AI, machines have achieved higher accuracy in predicting consumer behaviour which was earlier dependent upon human judgment. An accurate prediction is essential in areas like Search Engine Optimization (SEO), where content needs to be created based on search terms to increase page ranking, resulting in better visibility on search engines.
This has resulted in a significant decrease in human effort in digital marketing activities like keyword analysis generation of content related to the targeted keywords by using semantic search tools and other automated SEO techniques, which result in a better ranking for the concerned website.
Another major impact witnessed due to advanced AI algorithms is an increase in Return On Investment (ROI) through personalized Digital Marketing Services.
For example, an e-commerce company can send notifications regarding discounts or offers to its active customers through different social channels like Facebook or Twitter based on their past history, which results in increased sales numbers.
Since this could be done automatically by machines, it can be used as a valuable input for business growth plans involving expanding operations within specific geographical locations/markets.
As mentioned above, online consumers tend to trust Digital Marketing more than traditional forms of advertisement, which results in increased customer engagement through social media channels.
Due to this reason, companies are now shifting their focus towards SMS based messages or emails for promotional purposes with a limited scope of personalization which can be done through AI-based predictive capabilities.
Good examples are deals on mobile phones where the targeted messages can be personalized by differentiating customers depending upon their region and past spending history/browsing behaviour etc.
This has also led to automated chatbots being developed, which provide answers or solutions to several common problems customers face on e-commerce websites without any human intervention within seconds. This includes providing location-specific information help related to product availability at nearby stores.
To further improve the consumer experience, companies are now using Big Data technologies to increase their reach on digital platforms through personalized advertisements, product recommendations or new customer acquisition strategies via contests and sweepstakes, which is a great promotional strategy for big brands.
These ideas can be further used as a valuable input for future marketing plans depending on the customer purchasing patterns emerging from data mining activities over time.
Though there are certain positive impacts of AI on Digital Marketing, there are some limitations. Machines lack human creativity, which is crucial in innovation, as suggested by Google’s Artificial Intelligence Experiments project. They created an AI algorithm capable of creating its own children algorithms without any help from humans.
This could have been a valuable input for improving search algorithms or other machine learning activities. Still, it lacked the capability of improvising, which is one of the key requirements for Digital Marketing success. Further, implementing AI in e-commerce websites requires huge initial investments, a major deterrent for new or small scale companies.
Conclusion
AI has emerged as a key player in Digital Marketing due to its ability to turn overwhelming data into easy to understand information through various automated processes, which was earlier dependent on human effort and time.
This impacts both customers and businesses in terms of increased sales numbers, better customer engagement or loyalty resulting from personalized services, increased ROI, etc. However, there are certain limitations, including lack of creativity among machines, that can hinder improvement in existing marketing strategies.
