AI-Powered Personalization Drives Great Customer Experience

Sudipto Ghosh

March 26, 2018

Kevin Bobowski Said That Personalization Technologies and Data Allow BrightEdge to Segment Customers into More Targeted Groups and Provide Them More Accurate Information

60 percent of marketers surveyed said they are likely to incorporate AI into their content marketing strategy –– up 17 points from last year’s 43 percent.
The greatest reported benefit of AI is aiding marketers in a better understanding of the customer and driving productivity/ time savings.
The greatest deterrents to AI-adoption are confusion on the definition of AI and lack of budget.

BrightEdge, a leader in enterprise SEO and content performance marketing, made these startling observations related to the role of AI in their recently released report, titled, 2018 Future of Marketing and AI Survey.

At the time of this release, we had the opportunity to speak to Kevin Bobowski, SVP, Marketing at BrightEdge. Here is what he had to say about the report findings —

The State of Customer Experience in 2018

In 2018, customer experience is emerging as one of the single, most important areas of differentiation for brands everywhere. Changes in consumer behavior, consumer expectation and competition have accelerated.

Brands are no longer able to compete on price. Instead, brands must compete on delivering a compelling customer experience.

Marketers have a unique ability to leverage this data to create highly integrated campaigns and intelligent experiences.

For example, Starbucks figured this out more than 15 years ago and it has been part of their engine of growth. You can also see this in the examples of Amazon bookstores and Amazon grocery stores. They are invigorating mature retail categories with a smart and engaging shopping experience.

Personalization versus Customer Experience

Personalization Drives a Great Customer Experience

Customer experience is the broadest view of how we serve customers and prospects. It is difficult to deliver a great customer experience without some form of personalization, which increases relevance and decreases generic product and messaging clutter.

Personalization technologies and data allow us to segment customers into more targeted groups and provide them more accurate information and assistance.

Impact of AI-Powered Content Marketing Strategies

The Fastest Way for Marketers to Learn About AI and Become AI-First Marketers

Building an AI-powered content marketing strategy is a journey.

Simply adding AI to the title of your product or adding AI to your company description is NOT an AI strategy. A successful AI-powered initiative begins with data. Without valuable data and a platform that easily organizes data from different sources, AI and the algorithms behind it are not very valuable.

Also, marketers must start with a very specific problem to solve.

We call that the “Application of AI.” While AI is invaluable for processing large and complex data sets, generating more insights and recommendations might actually add to the problem that marketers are trying to solve. Insights and recommendations must be relentlessly prioritized – and focused on the handful of recommendations that have a material impact on your business.

**via BrightEdge 2018 Future of Marketing Report**

Biggest Challenges to Becoming a Decision-Driven Marketer in 2018

Too Much Data, Too Many Actionable Insights and Not Enough Time

Sometimes too much of a good thing (data and insights) is bad. Marketers need to identify the small number of insights that will have the biggest impact on their business.

Voice Search: A Credible Addition to Customer Personalization

The Growth of Voice Search from a Pet Technology for Marketers. AI and Voice Search Add Better Customer Personalization

Voice Search has moved from pet project to a key pillar for delivering a personalized customer experience. Brands must be discoverable everywhere consumers are – and voice search is no different. Voice search needs to be an integral piece of the overall marketing strategy. Optimizing for voice search is part of what my company BrightEdge calls smart content, content that blends the best of search marketing, artificial intelligence, and content marketing to power the development, activation, and optimization of high-performing content.

Voice search and machine verbal response enable a scalable way for companies to “converse” with more consumers without the headcount investment.

While marketers need to be prepared for this future, in all honesty, the ones who are going to “take all” are the ones who are already winning at Voice Search right now, as we’re already seeing it become essential to the customer experience.

Predictions for AI and Marketing in 2018

For every brand, customer experience is the last, sustainable source of competitive advantage.
Marketers with deep knowledge of market trends and consumer intent will differentiate themselves from the competition.
AI will only accelerate the convergence of SEO and Content Marketing to drive intelligent experiences that consumers love.

The BrightEdge 2018 Future of Marketing and AI Survey Report describes marketers’ awareness of the opportunity to use AI to deliver the right content to the right people at the right moment that moves them along the customer journey.