While machine learning can be leveraged across multiple platforms, effective machine learning can be beneficial for marketing automation.
How can marketers and CMOs leverage the power of machine learning for better customer engagement?
Talk to any CIO or CTO and you will begin hearing terms such as: big data, AI or artificial intelligence, and machine learning among others. There is a major buzz surrounding these technologies as they catch the eye of many enterprise leaders who are looking to advance their business.
Companies are now investing in technologies like machine learning and trying to leverage its capability to run their business. One of the major challenges that some companies face is the lack of knowledge about machine learning, its challenges, and its implications. They might have heard about the term, but don’t know the fine print.
According to the SAS Institute, machine learning “is a method of data analysis that automates analytical model building. It is a branch of artificial intelligence based on the idea that machines should be able to learn and adapt through experience.”
Companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have begun working with cloud-based machine learning technologies and there is an increasing popularity in artificial intelligence and machine learning platforms.
How can marketing teams and CMOs benefit from machine learning? Let’s look at some of the most important benefits:
Ease of Product Marketing & Effective Forecasting
Machine learning does play a pivotal role in helping organizations promote their products and help them to make better sales forecasts. It is advantageous for sales and marketing teams including:
- Analyzing past customer behaviors
- Faster processing of data for analysis
- Data utilization from a variety of sources
Effective Segmentation of Target Customers
An important component for any marketer is having the right customer segment. Machine Learning helps marketers eliminate ambiguous data and channel the right data coming from various sources like website visits and social media. Machine learning enables marketers to predict which marketing campaigns can yield better results and what level of incentives can be offered. This also helps marketers to engage with customers in a better way, allowing them to map customer requirements with the right product offerings.
Suggesting the Right Product
For any sales representative, upselling and cross-selling is a key element in the sales cycle. Machine learning platforms help sales and marketing teams understand purchasing patterns and help to identify the right product that potentially could help customers in their business. This creates an opportunity for an effective product recommendation.
These benefits of machine learning are a huge value proposition for the digital space. This platform empowers marketers and CMOs to find new trends from a variety of data sources. Machine learning enables CMOs and marketing teams to do effective data analysis and churn out meaningful assessments for better decision-making. Hence, having machine learning as part of your strategic initiative is a viable option.
However, one major challenge that organizations face is implementation. There are certain risks involved in the deployment of machine learning across marketing functions.
What does it take to implement a robust and effective machine learning system?
- Exceptional capabilities in data preparation
- Superior knowledge of algorithms
- Scalability
- Having iterative processes
Marketing and sales teams have very simple goals. One is to identify the best customers and the other is to provide an exceptional experience, bring customers closer to your company. Machine learning facilitates both these goals in a big way.
