Baby steps beat raging bull when it comes to Artificial Intelligence in marketing

We’re forever being told that agility and innovation are essential for business survival. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not calling hyperbole here. In fact, I’m in full agreement.

The abilities to adapt quickly and set new standards to drive an industry forward are essential.

They aren’t the starting point, though.

Last week I gave a keynote speech at Digital Marketing World Forum 2017. My topic? Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in marketing. My point of view? Baby steps, not raging bull.

The main challenge facing us marketers today is how to make businesses faster, simpler and more efficient. But how do we do this while ensuring that customers can benefit in the best way? How do we make their life simpler and their decision making quicker? I believe AI or Machine Learning is the answer.

Of course, at the start of any new adoption, ambitions can easily run wild. Grand and unobtainable plans can be formed in an instant. That’s why taking small steps while making use of trusted partnerships, dependable processes and the right technology is the smart approach. This doesn’t mean sacrificing agility and innovation – quite the opposite. AI in marketing is all about agility and innovation; accurately targeting customers with highly relevant content based on their specific behaviours.

A solid digital marketing strategy can be realised quicker than you think – and incorporating AI shouldn’t be viewed as a lofty, unrealistic goal.

For us at Ricoh Europe, there are three main pillars in our digital strategy – all of which are interdependent and enhanced with AI.

1.   Content distribution

2.   Meaningful connections powered by data

3.   Empathy & regulation

Most companies that adopt AI do so for website optimisation – few are using it for more commercially driven purposes like we are.

Ricoh’s AI journey

While traditional display advertising continues to have its merits, it has a number of limitations. It has a typically narrow reach, is based on assumption, and is often contextually irrelevant. What’s more, it’s expensive and intrusive.

Programmatic advertising, on the other hand, offers a broad reach based on profile matching and audience tracking.

But in both cases, traditional display advertising (site matching) and programmatic advertising (segmentation matching) the actual targeting is rather disconnected and historical. Humans are making decisions on the site and segment.

Facing this reality, machine learning (AI) presented itself as the way forward for us.

With our partner Addition + we are using machine learning for prospecting (outreach). Here, algorithms constantly monitor the type of content that our customers are engaging with before and after they visit our corporate website. This allows us to target the right person at the right time in the right environment while learning more about our own customer data. The AI does the modelling for us.

AI is used to search for similar online content that matches what our “visitors” were looking for. The AI platform then fires our adverts to relevant external pages and continues to optimise that content to ensure a truly relevant experience. The focus here is on enhanced first party data. This allows us to create a specific segment with our own data that is optimised in real time. Crucially, this activity also helps us build more empathetic connections with our target audience.

The result? A massive 3500% increase in qualified traffic to our website!

We also saw significant increase in our pipeline; with the number of Marketing Qualified Leads becoming Sales Qualified Leads becoming revenue. As a marketer, being able to demonstrate an increase in sales with revenue attributed to marketing activity is the ultimate achievement.

The role of AI in allowing brands to engage with customers consistently across multiple channels is the next essential requirement. The question now is which route will you follow: baby or bull?