Every other digital marketing agency, consultant, or small business is looking for new ways to bring in more clients and expand their audiences.
But with the speed at which everything is moving in the digital age, it’s getting harder and harder to reach the right people with the right content.
Enter AI in marketing.
How is A.I. and Machine Learning used in Marketing?
Artificial intelligence marketing (AI Marketing) is a method of leveraging customer data and AI concepts like machine learning to anticipate your customer’s next move and improve the customer journey.
Advancements in Artificial Intelligence are offering companies better ways to do just that. AI can help build more effective marketing strategies, improve the customer journey, and change the way businesses attract, nurture, and convert prospects.
The graphic below shows how AI and machine learning can be incorporated into every step in the customer’s lifecycle.
AI in marketing may feel more science fiction than fact to many, but Artificial Intelligence is no longer a far-off concept.
In fact, by 2022, companies are expected to be spending $81 billion on AI platforms.
It’s time for businesses of all sizes to think about how artificial intelligence can help them stand out from the competition.
So If you’re a LOCAL consultant, you work within a digital agency or you’re the owner of a small business looking to understand how A.I. can help you get ahead…
…we wanted to put things into perspective, so we’ve put together 10 AWESOME examples where A.I. & Machine Learning is already being used by Marketers and Businesses Alike.
1. Sephora A.i. Chatbots
There’s no beauty brand as successfully involved with A.I. as Sephora. They began using a chatbot to dispense beauty advice on Kik in 2017.
Sephora’s chatbot helped consumers narrow down choices, beginning with a quiz about their product preferences. This was especially helpful in the cosmetics industry, where the options can be overwhelming and difficult to purchase without testing a product in person.
Sephora gained valuable insights from their chatbot and saw enough engagement from that experiment that it’s since launched more chatbots on Messenger.
2. Stich Fix
Stich Fix is an online styling service that delivers personalized fashion products to its customers every month. Stitch Fix is partnering with experienced stylists with efficient AI to deliver refined recommendations to customers.
After AI has analyzed the data on style trends, body measurements, customer feedback, and preferences, it provides stylists with a workable set of possible recommendations to the human stylists. These professional stylists then handpick clothing and accessories for individual customers.
This example shows the advantage of AI, AI not replacing humans but enhancing them.
Using AI gave stitch to fix more confidence and lowered the risk of investing in merchandise.
3. Hemingway
(the Grammar Editing Tool)
Thank goodness for grammar editing apps. They save you heaps of time and energy by cleaning up errors as you write. But, what exactly is doing all the hard work?
You’ve guessed it. The A.I.!
Look at Hemingway Editor, for example.
This web app not only corrects errors in your writing but grades its reading level, passive voice, and offers suggestions for improvement.
The same goes for popular apps like Grammarly. All of these tools use simple levels of artificial intelligence to help you become a better writer and ultimately publish higher-quality content.
4. Pivot Bio
During a challenging time for the agriculture industry, with a widespread dependence on synthetic fertilizers, Pivot Bio wanted to increase awareness and education for its new innovative solution.
It offers farmers the first in-field microbial product to sustainably feed nitrogen daily to corn crops.
These guys launched the first AI-powered conversational ad for the agriculture industry to highlight game-changing advances in crop nutrition.
Behind the hood, it’s using the A.I. solution from IBM.
The results:
5% conversion rate (Massive)
Integrated home screen experience on The Weather Channel app drove a .59% engagement rate, +2.9x versus the benchmark
1.76 average user inputs per conversation
1.1x more conversations on integrated home screen experience versus conversations to date
5. TruGreen
When winter wanes and spring starts coming into view, homeowners go into planning mode.
Personalized lawn care company TruGreen wanted to get into the mindsets of these consumers—and get ahead of the competition—by inspiring people to go outside, enjoy life, and maybe even do a little lawn care.
The brand tapped into IBM Watson Advertising’s A.I. + deep understanding of weather’s impact on consumer behavior to cultivate the right combination of solutions.
Ultimately, the optimal solution used a mix of accurate weather and location data, plus content advertising and native marketing on The Weather Channel’s digital properties.
6. Amazon Launches Partners
Amazon was a pioneer of using machine learning to offer personalized product recommendations, but it has been a challenge for the brand to extend these capabilities to small and medium companies that are running their sites on Amazon Web Services.
This all changed when Amazon announced the general availability of Amazon Personalize, which brings the same machine learning technology used by Amazon.com to AWS customers for use in their applications.
BIG brands including Domino’s, Yamaha, Subway use it since its inception.
But recently, we’re starting to see smaller companies like the wedding company Zola starting to use using Personalize to highlight musical instruments in-store catalogs, deliver ingredient and flavor recommendations, and devise individualized style combinations.
7. HIPMUNK
Hipmunk provides booking prices for flights, hotels, excursions, and even vacation rentals through Airbnb. The company’s “Hello Hipmunk,” launched in 2015, it’s essentially an AI-powered travel assistant.
Chatting with the bot on Facebook, Slack, or Skype, users can book flights and find vacation ideas based on themes and interests. Travelers can also copy “Hello Hipmunk” on an email discussing potential travel plans and the bot will offer travel suggestions.
Additionally, the virtual assistant will scan your calendar for upcoming events and begin organizing a future trip.
8. NUMERAI
Numerai is an AI-powered hedge fund using crowdsourced machine learning from thousands of data scientists around the world.
The company releases abstracted financial data to its community of data scientists, all of whom are using different machine learning models to predict the stock market.
The diversity of the models within the “Meta Model” creates diversity in the portfolio, reducing risk and generating higher returns. Simply put, the more A.I. algorithms at work, the better.
The company is top secret about the makeup of the fund, its clients, and performance, but has more than 35,000 data scientists contributing to its platform and has paid out some $15 million worth of its cryptocurrency.
9. Magnolia Market Bridges
Magnolia Market, the brick-and-mortar shop owned by Joanna and Chip Gaines, is known for its stellar customer experience. The mission of Magnolia’s physical location is to “inspire you to own the space you’re in.”
To achieve this goal, the space they’ve created is a true brand experience that combines food, games, shopping, and a garden by leveraging A.I. & AR technologies.
Magnolia worked with Shopify Plus to create a storefront and an augmented reality app that allows users to view products in 3D and “place” them in their home.
Machine Learning + A.I. tech allowed Magnolia to render its products with the highest possible photo-realism.
Here’s an example:
10. Chase Bank
Chase Bank signed a five-year deal with Persado, a New York-based company that applies artificial intelligence to marketing creativity.
After testing Persado’s solutions, Chase found that using machine learning in their copywriting actually helped them achieve more humanity in their marketing.
For example, one digital ad written by humans read: “Access cash from the equity in your home.” Persado’s version, on the other hand, read: “It’s true—You can unlock cash from the equity in your home.”
The latter version actually performed better with customers.
These are just 10 examples that we found particularly interesting, but the possibilities are virtually ENDLESS.
If you’re curious about how this kind of technology performs in the hands of simple people like you and me, go ahead and give Localio AI a spin.