What Is Machine Learning?
The main concept of machine learning (ML) is to enable a computer to learn from data. How? Through deep data analysis and identifying patterns.
Machine learning is classified as a branch of artificial intelligence (AI). What is so special about this AI-driven technology? ML is able to make decisions without human help. All thanks to the automated model building used in data analysis.
Why machine learning technology is useful in marketing?
ML offers numerous solutions that can boost the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. It will give your business a competitive advantage.
The most successful companies have already implemented machine learning solutions. Will you be next?
Let’s take a look at the most popular ML applications in marketing.
Examples Of Machine Learning Applications
Content Optimization
Machine learning algorithms are especially effective at processing data, analyzing problems, and finding an optimal way to solve them. One of the popular practices is A/B testing.
It is an opportunity for marketers to try different options of:
- social media ad graphics,
- article headlines,
- email subject lines,
and many more.
Machine learning tools will determine which option is the most suitable for the target audience. Marketers can now use acquired feedback to take up more targeted marketing actions that will catch the attention of potential customers. Segmented marketing campaigns are proven to be most effective.
Personalization
Even if your company offers a popular service or product, you can still stand out from your competitors. How?
Simply thanks to an exceptional quality of customer experience. The key to success is to make your customers feel special and offer a unique approach that best suits their needs.
Machine learning technology enables your business to boost the engagement of your clients through managing their journeys across different digital experiences. It results in the maximization of the experiential value.
Many companies use machine learning and AI-based tools to observe their users’ behavior, learn from their historical activities, and make assumptions about what they may like or need in the future. Thanks to these forecasts, marketers can customize the content displayed for a particular user and automatically adapt it to their estimated preferences.
Chatbots
Machine learning is revolutionizing the face of customer service through chatbots. They are now offered by all of the well-known brands, usually placed as a pop-up on the bottom right corner of a website.
Chatbots are the fastest mean of communication between the customer and a company, available 24/7. No waiting time, answers appear immediately and cover the most common concerns.
This machine learning-driven solution is growing in popularity as it increases customer satisfaction. Users are also getting more and more used to this way of communication so if your business struggles with a high demand for customer support services, a chatbot is a perfect way to solve it.
However, bots can do more than that. They can help marketers with outbound marketing by sending follow-up messages to clients.
Moreover, bots are able to spread information about new products, sales, discounts, which will boost user engagement. Information collected by chatbots through interactions with clients enables marketers to analyze customer behavior and provide valuable insights.
Product Recognition With Computer Vision
Computer vision is an AI-driven technology that enables computers to understand and interpret digital images or videos. The use of computer vision tools in marketing is a relatively new trend.
Marketers take advantage of machine learning for computer vision in order to recognize their brand products in images and videos on the Internet, mainly on social media. ML algorithms check posts generated by different users to find those connected to the brand. As a result, a company gains awareness of how many people promote it and how popular the brand is among different groups of users. This task could have never be done by a human.
Moreover, machine learning tools can conduct research on competing brands to assess how your company is placed on the market. Benchmarking gives crucial information to marketers on the effectiveness of their actions.
Email Marketing Campaigns
One of the most popular marketing practices is an email campaign. Although it is one of the oldest practices since the Internet era, it is still proven to be effective. Marketers prepare numerous forms of email marketing, such as newsletters, how-to guides, information about the latest products, promotion announcements, etc.
Consumers are well aware of these persuasion techniques and filter their email box to limit the amount of spam. So, unless they find the content of a particular company useful, they will delete it immediately.
Machine learning offers a new opportunity – hyper-personalization of email campaigns. The message that goes to clients is prepared to fully reflect their preferences. ML algorithms will automatically find answers to the 4 key questions:
- Who to send to? Through data segmentation, machine learning can assess which users will be most interested in the message.
- What to send? Relevant content is crucial. ML tools can create subject lines and message content that is most likely to boost user engagement.
- How to send it? Machine learning can strengthen the reliability of the sending domain which will prevent your emails from going straight to the spam folder.
- When to send it? Basing on the previous activity of a particular user, ML can predict the best timing to send a message.
Thanks to these machine learning techniques, your marketing email campaign will boost the return of investment ratio (ROI).
Recommendation Systems
Marketers should never underestimate the power of recommendations. It is one of the most natural ways of encouraging people to take a specific action.
Whenever we talk to our family or friends, we seek their suggestions on good restaurants, books, particular products. Why? Because we know that they have enough information about us to assess which choice will best suit our needs.
Machine learning technology can become your new, more accurate advisor. Through observing the activity of each customer, like shopping patterns and browsing history, ML algorithms can determine which products or services might interest a particular client. Thanks to relevant recommendations your business can increase conversions.
Final Thoughts
Machine learning tools can be very helpful in your marketing efforts, as long as you know how to use them.
ML technology is not reserved only for big enterprises, it can be also very effective for small and medium businesses. It enables companies to significantly reduce the need for human engagement and automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks.
Start with machine learning consulting to discover solutions that will best suit your business needs. Optimizing your marketing efforts is essential as the amount of data and the strength of your competitors will only grow in the upcoming years.