TRENDS AND POSSIBILITIES TO LOOK OUT FOR

Marketing has always been evolving. As time passed, consumer tastes changed, new technologies appeared on the horizon and new communication platforms emerged. Newspapers and billboards, which were at the forefront of the industrial revolution have almost become a thing of the past. Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, and Big Data have drastically transformed how marketing messages reach the audience, how audience’s behavior is tracked, and how storytelling has swayed away from being too wide to becoming very personalized. 

What lies ahead in the distant future? How will new technologies shape the art of attracting a large group of people and enticing them to buy a particular product or a service? How will the technologies of today shape the marketing processes of tomorrow? One thing can be unanimously agreed upon – marketing in the future will heavily rely on digital platforms, automation, and data. With over 3.4 billion people on the internet, marketing has lately been heavily focused on netizens. Other significant trends have also been chalked out by experts. 

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AT THE CENTER OF MARKETING

Experts have already started to predict that AI will dictate a major part of the marketing process, if not all of it. Marketers around the world are already reaping big returns on AI innovations. Research firm Tractica predicts that the revenue generated by the global AI software market will rise from $1.4 billion to $59.8 billion by 2025. And it’s not just in marketing, AI will play a major role in economic developments as well. Manning Global recently stated in one of their research papers that AI may also contribute to global GDP growth of $15.7 trillion by 2030.

Marketing driven by Artificial Intelligence, or ‘AI Marketing’ as experts have already started calling it, will rest upon three key pillars: Big Data, Machine Learning, and Powerful Solutions. 

With the help of big data analytics and machine learning that’s ever-evolving, marketers are able to create more detailed profiles of large data sets, target more accurately, identify patterns from large data repositories, and base decisions more on facts than intuition. The third pillar, the next frontier, are powerful solutions that are deep integrations of big data analytics and machine learning into highly intelligent AI that will have a deep human understanding of the human world and be able to identify insightful concepts across huge data sets at an incredibly fast rate. The breathtaking 2018 advertisement by Lexus for example had been entirely scripted by an AI, and that scratches the surface of what AI may be capable of in the new decade.  Yes, at the pace at which AI is developing, the Don Draper of the next decade might as well be a powerful machine.

BETTER SEARCH ENGINES

AI has profoundly impacted the way we search for information online, along with the overall quality of the search experience.  In 2015, Google’s experimentations with AI led to their machine learning-based algorithm RankBrain, which helps process search results. Since then, Amazon and other large e-commerce sites have followed suit by incorporating AI into their search engines to make product searching smarter. With innovations like semantic search and natural language processing (NLP), search engines are now able to crawl through multiple websites, correlate similar links, auto-correct mistakes, and find relevant search results. These will further improve in the days to come – resulting in a seamless, faster search experience for people.

PERSONALIZED ADS

The ability to understand your audience in real-time means the customers’ ad experience can be optimized with a level of unprecedented personalization at scale. Facebook and Google are experts at this. Rather than bombarding users with generalized content, they serve targeted advertisements to each user. To serve personalized ads, they rely on a collection of data points their machine learning algorithm collects, digests, and extrapolates on a user’s behavior over time. And they do this on a massive scale with extremely high efficiency, projected to exceed $200 billion in combined revenue in 2020. As these digital platforms continue to amass more audience data, chances are that marketing will continue to become even more personalized in the future. 

TARGETED AD TIMINGS

While TV and Radio rely on peak hours to broadcast their ads, machine learning can enable marketers to further track audiences’ behavior patterns and map out micro-moments in which ads will result in maximum engagement and conversion. Machine learning can parse vast amounts of data into hyper-segmented groups, so too can it use data to calculate and predict times of peak engagement. By learning when specific groups have engaged with content in the past, AI programs can predict when they are most likely to be interested in content in the future.

RISE OF IOT 

In the near future, many of our appliances and electronic gadgets will have the capability to connect to the internet either directly or through a dedicated phone app. This means that home appliances like air conditioners, refrigerators, cookers, coffee-makers, and washing machines will be able to connect to the internet. This will allow marketers to obtain data about their consumers’ use of their products and respond with instant marketing messages. Not only that, just like the notifications from apps and SMS in smartphones, marketers can also try to send small messages or find out ways by which they can utilize these devices to interact with their audiences and pitch new offerings. 

TOOLS TO TRACK BUYER EMOTIONS

Most buying decisions are emotional. So smart marketers and advertising professionals will use the opportunities offered by digital technology to appeal to the emotions of new and existing customers. More software applications are being developed to detect the emotional feelings of buyers accurately. Everything from the look and feel of a website or app, to the sequence of marketing messages, is being studied carefully.

INCREASE IN WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY

Many people are now using fitness trackers and smartwatches to monitor their health and fitness. Since these devices have companion apps that are used to connect to the websites of the manufacturers, the data obtained can be used to improve consumer engagement and provide highly personalized marketing. These devices will also have a major impact on the healthcare industry. Many medical practitioners will eventually depend on the data provided by wearable devices to track a patient’s response to treatment and to promote their services.

AUDIENCE HYPER-SEGMENTATION

Most CMOs would agree that a deep understanding of the target audience is key to a successful campaign. However, in early marketing, much of this was based on assumptions and limited data. AI programs give marketers an edge by accumulating and effectively processing massive amounts of data – far larger datasets than previously possible. As machine learning algorithms comb through the data, they learn more and more about the audience and are able to make an increasing number of connections between each data point. This enables the creation of hyper-focused, segmented groups based on these similar connections.

SMARTER CHATBOTS

By now, most people have probably talked to a chatbot without even realizing it. Brands have been utilizing services like Facebook Messenger and Slack to communicate with users for a while. However, these services typically require human resources to manage, as well as potentially provide a poor customer experience by making people wait for the next available representative. Chatbots solve this problem by utilizing AI to automate responses by providing potential buyers with ways to find the right product or service. They also drive efficiency by handling unlimited inquiries at the same time and by being available 24/7. Chatbots also retain data, and thus, can learn and improve the results of future conversations based on past inquiries.

RAPID INCREASE IN E-COMMERCE

Due to the improvement in the loading times of many retail websites, more consumers are expected to make the internet their main shopping mall. As more people depend on their mobile devices to shop online, there will be a larger audience available to consume marketing messages and adverts in mobile apps, and search engine results pages. Virtually all brick-and-mortar retail outlets will need to have a vibrant e-commerce store to remain competitive.

EMBRACE WHAT’S POSSIBLE

Regardless of what lies ahead, one thing is for certain. Technology will continue to automate some of the most human tasks of today. While we are yet to see and witness what happens to the human gift of embracing creativity and innovating new ideas, it is about time that we humans use most of these machines to reach greater heights. 

by Farhat Chowdhury