If you don’t know me by now
According to a recent study by Forbes Insights and Quantcast, only 30% of marketers think that AI will be crucial or important for their marketing efforts (the survey asked 500 marketers all across the globe). However, most of them see the advantages of using AI, such as developing better relationships with customers and prospects and work more efficiently by automating day-to-day-tasks. So how can 58% know that AI can be used to create a better customer experience and yet 70% don’t think that this will be crucial for their overall marketing strategies, plans and efforts?
Other things that marketers, who don’t think AI will be crucial, expect from AI technologies:
- Better measurement of campaigns, KPI, etc.
- Real-time awareness and reactions to customers and leads
- Better segmentation
- Messaging themes that drive engagement
Blissful ignorance
63% of the executives surveyed in the study said that they don’t have a partner with ?enough expertise“ which was keeping their companies from a successful AI-implementation. In other words: there’s a lack of know-how about AI in companies and it shows. In fact, most ?laggards“ in the AI-department still use an overwhelming number of second- or even third-party data instead of their own data. It’s 2019 and there’s still companies out there that haven’t realized that the best insights can be gained from their own customers and leads, even those that churn or don’t even become customers. Using AI with third-party data? Of course that won't give you crucial advantages. It's like asking random people on the street what they would like for their birthday instead of asking your partner when planing for their birthday.
Look, if you can name numerous things that the effective use of AI can do for your business unit, if even 52% of the ?laggards“ see benefits from deploying AI in their marketing efforts then maybe, MAYBE, it’s not that AI can’t be crucial for your business but more that you are not ready for AI, yet.
And that is fine but should also be an incentive to make sure that you are ready soon, because just like cloud computing, just like automation and just like customer centricity, AI is here to stay and your competition will not wait on it.