The road ahead for marketing- Marketing Technology

The road ahead for marketing – Marketing Technology

Marketing technology is transforming the way we do marketing. Traditional marketing activities (print media, television ads) are moving towards digital formats (online ads and social media marketing).

The changing customer behavior and the advent of mobile technologies have made today’s customer more tech-savvy.

Global marketing technology adoption

Globally, customers are expected to start using the most modern technologies in their daily life by 2020. – Marketo Survey

Machine learning and Internet of things (IoT) are the major technologies consumers are expected to use.

Survey Details: Marketo Survey, Marketo

Survey Question: What technologies do you anticipate that your customers will be using within the next year? N=620, Survey conducted by Marketo.

Therefore, Marketers need to focus on opportunities that can leverage these technologies and reach out to a larger target audience innovatively.

Machine Learning has enabled technology companies to develop predictive software and applications such as Chatbots.  It will transform the 24/7 support services and help establish positive customer engagement.

Similarly, IoT enabled devices are capturing a large amount of consumer data through its daily interaction with the consumers.

For example, Fitbit continuously tracks the customer’s daily fitness goals and provides recommendations. The app, as well as the fitness band, alerts the user when skewed from the daily pre-set goals.

Fitbit could provide relevant health updates and details of body fitness products through the apps as part of cross-selling or upselling strategies.

Key technology trends in marketing

Machine Learning:

Marketers leverage machine learning for various applications such as automated data visualization, content analysis, and predictive analytics. These techniques will transform the traditional marketing activities into a more data-driven process.

Machine learning techniques in data analysis is a sought-after application today. Machine learning helps to predict the right visualization tool for data representation.

It also helps in the content analysis by analyzing content formats that excites a specific target group. Machine learning uses certain learning algorithms and other sophisticated analysis like pattern recognition. As a result,  it predicts the content and matches it to the right audience.

Interesting Applications: Automated data visualization, content analysis tools,

Internet of things:

Internet of things (IoT) is a popular technology in retail today. Brands like Amazon, Samsung have launched IoT enabled devices that analyze product usage and alert for reorders.

The connected consumables resupply models pave the way to a new revenue stream for retail brands. Also, providing a unique customer experience along aside.

IoT applications in marketing do not just limit to retail marketing alone but also to sales, customer management, and social relations management.

IoT is already servicing all the basic sales transactions such as order replenishment, refills, and renewals enabled automation systems.

For instance, retail brands like Walmart are in the process of automating the point of sales systems for automatic checkouts.

Customer analysis is yet another interesting area where IoT devices find its application. IoT enables the business to collect, organize and analyze customer data. It helps in deriving actionable insights about purchase behavior, demographics and changing brand preferences.

IoT devices help marketers to automate social relations by posting and sharing valuable insights generated from these devices. As a result, it drives engagement with the social audience and helps the brand build a strong online community.

Interesting Applications: Retail marketing, sales automation, customer analysis, predictive social media

Artificial intelligence:

Artificial intelligence has given rise to various smart automation tools that marketers can leverage to connect with customers more innovatively effectively. Chatbots are the most common among these smart automation tools.

Today’s Chatbots offer an exceptional level of personalization, seamless communication, and results. It diminishes the fact that it’s a robot with whom the user is interacting to get the tasks done.

Mobile-focused marketing platforms are leveraging the power of smart automation apps to engage their customers with relevant marketing messages and service at the right time and place.

Artificial intelligence applications in marketing are not just limited to Chatbots. In fact, Chatbots are just a beginning of the umpteen opportunities for marketers to leverage.

Artificial intelligence in marketing is already in use across various areas such as content creation mainly on generating recurring reports such as sport match reports and financial reports.

Ad targeting is another application that leverages artificial intelligence for marketers to run analysis through historical ad data to establish the right target audience.

Interesting Applications: Chatbots, artificial intelligence based content creation, Ad targeting

Augmented reality:

Augmented reality (AR) enables marketers to deliver unique customer experience.  AR-based product catalog augments the real world with the animated world.

For example, brands like Lego and Ikea have already created augmented reality-based product catalogs for their customers. It is a new level of customer engagement that triggers a positive customer experience and connects with the modern tech-savvy customers.

In fact, Augmented reality currently is also used as a creative tool for driving social media interactions. Marketers are introducing unique marketing techniques like augmented reality-based games and contents that resonate with their social audience.

For example, Pokémon Go is an example of an augmented reality-based gaming experience.

Interesting Applications: Augmented reality-based product catalogs, augmented reality as a creative tool

Virtual Reality:

In contrary to augmented reality, Virtual reality provides a more immersive experience for its users. The technology enables to teleport the users to a different world.

Marketers in the hospitality and retail industry could create effective marketing campaigns leveraging virtual reality. The immersive nature of virtual reality creates a unique customer experience.

For example, Marriot hotels offer a virtual tour for its customers around their prime properties across the world. It enables customers to have a walk through their favorite locations before they travel or book a stay.

Interesting Applications: Virtual tour, Immersive customer experience

The application of marketing technology is limitless, and these applications represented above is just a tip of an iceberg. Marketers have umpteen opportunities in today’s technology world to provide customers with exceptional customer engagement and customer experience.

In today’s fast-paced world these technologies are also constantly evolving with the introduction of new features and capabilities.

Hence, the success of every marketer lies with staying ahead in the market by updating to the latest technology and applying it at the right time and place.